Twitter: Suffering From the "Elon Musk” Side Effect

Our world is filled with many kinds of creatures. In the vast mass of homo sapiens, people with varying personalities, beliefs, and qualities survive together. These people contribute towards bringing defining change, either positive or negative, in the world. Then comes personalities like the brand new CEO of the popular social networking platform Twitter, Elon Musk. 

Oops! I guess it's Ex-Brand New CEO now! I mean, who changes CEO every six months? 

Now these kinds of personalities are pretty unique as they have the power to change world order with their many antiques. Ahh! The perks of being filthy rich! Once the world’s richest man on Earth, Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla & SpaceX. He has many other achievements under his belt, from being the chief engineer of SpaceX to the position of product architect at Tesla. He also has the responsibility of making Twitter a constant piece of news since October last year.

From changing Twitter’s Blue Bird logo to DogeCoin Meme to giving Blue Checkmarks to all who subscribe to Twitter Blue, Musk has successfully disrupted the roots of the platform.    

Disclaimer: Dear Readers, if there are any new upgrades while this article is published, then I apologize in advance. Can’t really keep up with the madman anymore!!

How did Musk end up bagging Twitter? 

Elon Musk’s deep connection with Twitter cannot be limited to his hilarious and often random tweets. The story of Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk is not short of a rom-com script. There is Musk’s romance with being the centre of attention all the time and the comedy he makes of the popular social media platform, Twitter. 

Musk began acquiring Twitter in March 2022. But the complete ownership of Twitter under Musk’s wings took eight more months, i.e. by October last year. Although a company acquisition comes with numerous formalities and paperwork, the complicacy of acquiring a business was not the prime reason for this delay. 

I have divided the whole fiasco into crispy sections to give you short yet refined information about the upgrades that took place. 

The First Contactabsolutist

In 2010, Tesla became public, and SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket. This was also the year when Musk posted his first-ever Twitter post. But the actual story of the Twitter acquisition begins in March 2022. Self-proclaimed “free speech ” Elon Musk started targeting Twitter for not being an ideal media platform. Utilizing his huge following on Twitter, Musk began asking for people’s opinions via polls in March 2022. 

A Harmless (Unnecessary) Suggestion

The rise of questions by such a well-known personality did its charm. Many Twitter users and non-users alike (in different social media platforms) started pointing fingers towards Twitter’s authenticity. This is not surprising as the tweets Musk shared in the form of polls had promising engagements and reach. In the midst of polls and random tweets, Elon Musk received a suggestion from a random user to just “Buy It”. This began Musk’s interest in making Twitter his and also the reason why I am writing this article right now.

Obstacles In the Path to Acquisition 

Elon Musk was already part of Twitter’s board of directors, the biggest shareholder, to be exact, with a 9% stake by April. He was also invited to join the board of directors by then-CEO Parag Agrawal, which he declined without mentioning the reason. Elon Musk decided to offer $43 Billion to acquire Twitter Inc. and make it private. The board unanimously voted in favour of per share being valued at $54.20 while the share peaked at $51.72 in April 2022. But then Musk caught the scent of the platform gaining spam accounts in abundance. This caused a delay in transferring ownership of the company to Elon Musk.

Lawsuits & Debates

At this point, it looked like Musk was regretting ever thinking about having Twitter Inc. under his wing. In the name of spam accounts and Twitter’s hesitation in sharing data regarding its issues, Musk shared uncertainty about the offer. This led to Twitter Inc. filing a lawsuit against Musk. In the end, like a beaten child, Musk had to go forward with the planned deal, albeit reluctantly. 

And so, we got to see the historic events like the removal of Blue Tick, the omittance of “W” from Twitter, as well as the conversion of a renowned media platform into a meme. 

Twitter Issues & Their Solutions By Elon Musk

So, Twitter had many problems, according to Musk. Apart from the free speech constriction factor, Musk pointed out many problems he came across since the abrupt decision to own the company crossed his mind. I am going to point out all the issues Musk found on Twitter as well as the upgrades he incorporated after his acquisition. So, let’s see whether the changes done by Musk were up to par or not. 

Problem No 1: Limitation to Content. 

Despite being an influential social networking platform, at first, Twitter had the limitations of 140 characters. This increased to 280 characters in 2017. The constraint in terms of content makes it difficult for users to freely address their views. Users had to fragment their sentences into more than one tweet, aka Twitter Threads. Although the threads look cool, the problem with them is they have a good probability of getting lost in the crowd. Meaning, the threads are often not read by users in their designated series. 

Solution: Twitter Blue Revamp!

To remove the barrier of character count for Tweets, Musk allowed the character count extension from 280 characters to 10,000 characters. But, this extension is only limited to Twitter Blue subscribers. The tweets with 10,000 characters are readable by all, but the one who wishes to write such long thoughts would have to pay Twitter to do so. Yet another attempt to monetize Twitter! After all, Musk is a businessman through and through. 

Insider's Verdict: Elon Musk often expressed his views on how each and every person should have the freedom to express their views without any limitations. He was constantly polling about this particular section since before his plans to acquire Twitter.

So, why make the extension in character count limited to only subscribers? From a business perspective, he is doing fine! But what about the many promises Musk made to turn Twitter into an ideal platform? 

Problem No. 2: Presence of Spam Accounts.

What came out as a surprise to Musk during through Twitter acquisition in May 2022 was the number of spam accounts on the platform. As per inside data, 5% of Twitter’s daily users were found to be spam. Musk didn’t like the number, and the company was unwilling to provide in-depth data regarding the situation. This caused a whole new drama for the public which included segments like:

• Musk’s hesitation on going ahead with the acquisition;
• Twitter filing a lawsuit against Elon Musk for going to-and-fro from the deal;
• Musk challenged then-CEO Parag Agrawal to a debate regarding proving the 5% mark of spam accounts on Twitter;  
• Then, Musk took a U-Turn and agreed to acquire Twitter at the agreed value of $44 Billion if they dropped the lawsuit. 

Solution: Twitter’s Shadow Ban 

Elon Musk doesn’t believe in restricting people’s opinions, whether they are praises or criticisms. He, in fact, welcomes them! (His words, not mine!) 

To reduce the spam accounts, Musk’s Twitter decided to shadow-ban usernames that have been inactive for a long time. Notifications were sent to those accounts, undermining the reduced visibility of their accounts due to inactivity. This way, they have claimed to remove 1 million spam accounts on a daily basis.  

Insider Verdict: Although this strategy of shadow-banning accounts worked well in removing several spam accounts, what about the genuine ones? As per Twitter’s policy, if a person doesn’t log in or tweet for six months, then they are counted among the inactive accounts. There are people like me who don’t post anything on Twitter often but still like using the platform. Is gaining information less important than sharing it? Many people also shared that Twitter has shadow-banned certain accounts by claiming them to be spam to reduce the generation of certain kinds of content. So, were you also shadow-bombed by Twitter?

Problem No. 3: Constriction of Speech

Apart from the limited content acceptance on Twitter, the social networking platform has also bagged allegations for constricting free speech. Twitter used to be infamous for permanently banning or temporarily suspending many accounts. These actions took place if there were complaints reported by other users in case of abusing Twitter’s policies and violations. Due to this, famous personalities, like the 45th President of America, Donald Trump, were banned. 

Solution: No More Permanent Bans

As soon as Musk came into power as the new “Chief Twit”, he decided to remove the permanent bans imposed on multiple usernames like Donald Trump, Kangana Ranaut, etc. The only change Post-Musk Twitter had was the renewal of the verification process for gaining a Blue Checkmark. Twitter Blue subscribers are now crowned with the Legacy Blue Checkmark, which previously only selective people got to enjoy. This way, Musk envisioned destroying the barrier between popular personalities and common folk.

Insider Verdict: In order to make sure that a human’s basic right, i.e. the freedom of speech, is not neglected, Musk ended up neglecting the reason behind the banning of these accounts. Many of the entities banned were accused of boosting negative factors like violence, stating offensive comments, and spreading hatred. Take Andrew Tate, for example. Former professional kickboxer and media personality Tate made horrendous comments about the #MeToo movement stating women to bear responsibility for being raped. Despite the right to free speech, I strongly believe people like Tate should be banned everywhere. 

Problem No. 4: Low Profitability

This issue was the one that Musk came across after acquiring Twitter in October 2022. Twitter was the reputed platform used for historic events such as the Arab Spring Movement in 2010 or USA Presidency Elections in 2017. Despite gaining grand popularity, the platform was not profitable when it comes to revenue generation. 

Solution: Monetizing the Platform 

As a step to monetize the platform as much as possible, Musk decided to revamp the Twitter Blue subscription. He increased the Twitter Blue subscription from $4.99 to $8 per month. Subscribers who take Twitter Blue’s subscription would now get to enjoy various perks. Subscribers can edit tweets, get to turn on reading mode, as well as create bookmarks containing tweets and threads they wish to visit at other times. He also awarded the subscribers with Legacy Blue Tick, hence removing the credibility of original accounts and fake ones.

Insider Verdict: Monetizing the platform in order to generate more revenue is the main motive for Elon Musk when it comes to Twitter. To do this, he is creating the possibility of more fake account creation on the platform. As gaining Blue Ckeckmark is valued in terms of capital instead of followers, anyone can deceive another. This means if a Blue Checkmark holder at Twitter named “Amitabh Bachchan” DMs you, then don’t fly high on your unicorns because that is not the BigB the world knows.

The Bottom Line

Being the hub of interaction for people residing in different corners of the world, information, especially news from different sectors, is bound to be dumped on Twitter. Some news pieces are accurate, some contain half-facts and half-baked statements, whereas some pieces are absolute bullshit. These bullshit pieces are fake news, and they have to ability to misdirect an individual based on the scale they are being shared or, in Twitter jargon, “Retweeted”. Because anyone can post about anything on Twitter, it is also known to be a huge circle for fake information. 

But, the changes Musk is bringing in the name of presenting a better platform for everyone seem like unfinished desires to many. Now that a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, has the reigns, let’s see what “upgrades” Twitter is bound to receive. No matter what, the social networking platform is going to be in the spotlight as long as CTO Elon Musk has the power.

 If I quote Taylor Swift, then 🎵  Musk’s Twitter never goes Out Of Style. 🎵