The billionaire has just done something unusual for the first time: succumbing to pressure.
Elon Musk no longer sits in the driver’s seat.
He has been relegated to the passenger and does not seem to know the direction the driver will take.
The billionaire finds himself in an unusual situation since he became the boss of Twitter, which he acquired on October 27 at the hefty price tag of $44 billion.
From the first hours, he gave the impression of being in control. Musk fired four top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal. A few days later, he announced a program of drastic cost reductions which included the elimination in one day, of 3,700 jobs, half of the platform’s workforce.
The tech tycoon has also decided to revamp Twitter Blue, the subscription service offered by the social network.
The goal of all these initiatives is to find significant revenue streams to make Twitter profitable. This is necessary as Musk borrowed $13 billion from banks to fund the Twitter deal.
But the billionaire caused a huge controversy, by deciding to charge for the Blue Badge, which tells users that the account is verified, by integrating it into Twitter Blue and raising the price to $7.99 a month.
His justification was that by charging to have a blue mark check, it would deter entities running spam bots, aka fake accounts, which are the source of misinformation, racist comments and hate speech on the platform.
Impersonators
Despite the criticism, Musk held on. He rolled out Blue’s new formula on November 9 in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
But very quickly, fake accounts emerged. People were able to open new accounts posing as well-known companies and celebrities. These accounts had been authenticated with the blue check mark.
Tesla’s (TSLA) – Get Free Report fake account posted jokes about the vehicle maker’s safety record. A fake Eli Lilly (LLY) – Get Free Report account posted that insulin was now free. The pharmaceutical giant had to apologize.
Another fake account from defense group Lockheed Martin (LMT) – Get Free Report sent a message saying: “We will begin halting all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States, until further investigation into their record of human rights abuses. #WeAreLM>”
Nintendo’s (NTDOF) purported account posted an image of Super Mario giving the middle finger.
U-Turn
Initially to combat impersonators, Musk left the “official” badge in the bios of high-profile accounts like institutions, celebrities and brands. The billionaire then announced that he “killed” this feature.
“So now there’s two verified checks. One that shows next to your profile in replies, in retweets, and everywhere else: It means you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber,” Youtube star Marques Brownlee posted on November 9. “The other one (“Official”) only shows up on certain profiles and on tlmeline……”
To which Musk replied with: “I just killed it.”
The move was also confirmed by Twitter in a post on the Twitter Support account.
“We’re not currently putting an “Official” label on accounts but we are aggressively going after impersonation and deception,” Twitter Support posted on November 9.
Faced with a flood of impersonators and the mass withdrawal of brands which have suspended promotion of their products and services on the platform, Musk has made an about-face.
Twitter Support indicated on November 11 that the “Official” designation was making its return.
“To combat impersonation, we’ve added an ‘Official’ label to some accounts,” the platform said.
The message was reinforced by Musk himself in a separate tweet.
“Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include “parody” in their name, not just in bio,” the billionaire posted.
He added: “To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok.”
It also appears that Twitter has suspended new signups for Twitter Blue, that allow users to receive a blue verification badge without authenticating their identity as a result of the flood of impersonator accounts, TheStreet noted on November 11.
The option to sign up for Blue has disappeared on some Twitter’s iOS app.
Musk’s U-turn comes after a dramatic message he delivered to Twitter employees. According to Bloomberg News, the billionaire has warned that Twitter could go bankrupt if it fails to generate cash fast enough.
Musk faces a lot of challenges and the most important and urgent is to convince advertisers that the social network will implement a content policy against hate speech. The billionaire who defines himself as a “free speech absolutist” believes that everything can be said as long as it does not violate the law.
General Motors (GM) – Get Free Report, General Mills (GIS) – Get Free Report, Stellantis (STLA) – Get Free Report, Pfizer (PFE) – Get Free Report, Audi (VLKAF) and others have suspended their Twitter ads to see what direction Musk plans to give on content. The phenomenon of impersonators will not help the mogul, who has set up a council to reflect on the content policy.
Advertising represents 91% of Twitter revenue.
