Elon Musk Visits Twitter, and Changes Twitter Account to "Chief Twit"

[engine]

Elon Musk visited Twitter this week carrying a kitchen sink, and said, "let that sink in."
It seems the deal to buy twitter will close on Friday, and he's already changed his twitter account to read "Chief Twit."

[edition.cnn.com...]

Previous story Report: Elon Musk Offered to Go Ahead With Twitter Deal at $54.20 per share [webmasterworld.com]

[Dimitri]

The end is nigh

[engine]

The end is nigh

That may be true to hold up that placard, but not necessarily all Musk's fault.

[londrum]

I hope he changes a few things, i like twitter and it will be good if he improves it

[tangor]

I suspect that once Musk is in charge the media adoration of twitter and it's out-sized footprint in news will be significantly reduced.

Have to wait and see!

[lucy24]

changed his twitter account to read "Chief Twit."

@realElonMusk was already taken?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I find Chief Twit the perfect title. In charge but not large.

Twitter will be reduced in some places and amplified in others most likely, Tangor. It doesn't change the people using the platform though.

He immediately reassured advertisers that Twitter will not become a free for all hellpot tolerating abusive messaging. At least there's that.

The proof is in the details, If he doesn't find a way to help people find common ground on divisive topics his company will remain part of the problem. Common ground is important, ask Tim Robbins - [taibbi.substack.com...]

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

A day later we find out that his vision for Twitter starts off by replacing policy making staff with staff that are successful influencers in touch with the heartbeat of social conversations.

Who will replace Vijaya Gadde, Mr Beast? Doubtful but he's smart in closing the divide between users and people who make the rules for users. When you have a politicaly minded lawyer guiding the conversation the results differ than if actual influencers get to have an opinion too.

Nothing against Mrs Gadde, in fairness she outsourced what led to some current policy to a group of researchers in a "discourse study" on the platform in 2018. None of them were active on social for a living.

He's reportedly digging into the code already with plans to review things like shadow bannings, permanent bans and politically motivated bans. Being abusive however will still remain a quick way to get squelched.

Hope he figures it out, everyone wins if he does.

[tangor]

t's engineers went off clock on Thursday. Tesla's engineers are going through the code right now. Have to wait and see what the review produces.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

They all work for him, his senior most trusted engineers are going over the code. When he gets the report a diverse ethics team will come in to review the banning process. We, as users, won't see changes until after it's done.

Personally I'd like to see Twitter use blind moderation. The policy enforcement staff could be shown tweets stripped of personaly identifiable information including it's author, in a location where they can't access the net to find out who wrote it. Tweets would be evaluated purely on abuse level of the tweet itself.

Comedians would rejoice!

[engine]

Twitter Blue users could see a huge jump in subscriptions costs, from $4.99 per month to $19.99 per month.

Musk says that the whole verification process will be revamped.

[theverge.com...]

[Dimitri]

I bet Elon bought Twitter, just to take down the account of the guy who is tracking his jet plane :)

[engine]

haha, with Musk, I wouldn't put that beyond him.

I'm seeing quite a backlash over the $19.99 per month for verification.

Just because Musk can afford it doesn't mean others can, or whether they want to. He bay drive users away, which might be in his mind.

Nobody knows his mind, which seems to swing around one way or another.

[tangor]

Dunno ... sometimes money for mouth makes sense.

Time will tell if there's a take up!

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm seeing quite a backlash over the $19.99 per month for verification.

People who like to complain, judge and sound clever doing it will pay I bet.

Quarterly reports with actual subscription numbers will be interesting to see over the next couple of years.

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 5:02 am (utc) on Nov 1, 2022]

[tangor]

The largest group complaining is journalists (at the moment). Trolls, on the other hand who might LIKE to have the blue check are not likely to invest, after all that COSTS them to play. :)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Reality is that "verified" has to mean SOMETHING!

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

The largest group complaining is journalists (at the moment). Trolls, on the other hand who might LIKE to have the blue check are not likely to invest, after all that COSTS them to play. :)

Trolls not paying and thus losing the blue checkmark would be a bad thing?

Many journalists are trolls too. He's owned the company 2 days and made no changes to the platform yet and journalists have drawn and quartered him anyway.

Put in context with inflation, the price of food and gas etc... there are more important things for journalists to complain about than a $10 possible blue checkmark cost increase for special people IMHO.

[tangor]

Preachin' to the choir!

Seriously, that blue check NEEDS verification and the best way to do that is via a financial transaction, repeated, this reveals source/identity.

I am all for the anonymous web, have been since the beginning, but at some point, if one is to be taken serious, verification and contact info needs to be revealed. Heck, G and adsense would never work without it. T has skirted this for too many years.