Half a year in crisis mode
This is how Elon Musk moves Twitter to the right
4/21/2023, 10:13 p.m
Loss of value, loss of income, decline in reputation: Half a year under the aegis of tech billionaire Musk has shaken up Twitter. The loudly promised freedom of speech does not ensure more debate, but only gives more space to right-wing political views.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has ruled Twitter for half a year – and the short message service has been in permanent crisis mode ever since. Mass layoffs, loss of advertisers, disputes with the media: the turbulence never ends. For Musk, the $44 billion Twitter purchase has also been a bad investment so far. In the recent issue of shares to employees, the company value was only half as high, as Musk confirmed in a BBC interview. At the same time, he claimed in an email to employees that Twitter could eventually be worth $250 billion. The suggestions that the service could become the basis for a super app along the lines of WeChat in China have so far not gone beyond mere speculation.
Twitter has not had to name business figures since leaving the stock exchange. Musk first claimed that advertising revenue had temporarily halved. Most recently, he said that the losses were only small. After the departure of advertising customers, he relies on more subscription revenues. On Friday, according to media reports, Twitter let advertisers know via email that they would have to take out a paid subscription for a tick symbol as an individual account or company in order to be able to continue showing ads.
Musk changed Twitter. A major upheaval, with uncertain consequences for the platform’s credibility, was just beginning: the blue icons that once denoted an account perfectly verified by Twitter were removed. The checkmarks that look the same now carry profiles whose owners pay a subscription fee of 9.52 euros. There is no real verification – except that a telephone number must be given and confirmed. Many celebrities refuse to pay money for it. That’s why they lost their old ticks on Friday night. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, their Twitter profiles are no longer verified, which clears the way for fake accounts. For whatever reason, Musk paid the subscription fee for basketball star LeBron James, writer Stephen King and actor William Shatner out of his own pocket. James and King let it be known that they had nothing to do with it, “Captain Kirk” Shatner gratefully accepted.
Arbitrariness in the rules replaces arbitrariness in the rules
Musk of all people, who complained about the arbitrariness in the assignment of the ticks in the old procedure, which divided the users into “lords and pawns”, decided arbitrarily who kept the symbol, contrary to a rule that was said to apply to everyone. Elsewhere, too, his promises were only partially kept. He always swore to an “absolute freedom of speech” that should exist on his Twitter. However, journalists’ accounts have been blocked several times for alleged violations of Twitter rules because they posted links to their articles.
Under the flag of free speech, however, there is now more room on Twitter for right-wing views and vaccine skeptics – both beliefs that Musk himself represents. Scores of accounts blocked for hate speech or spreading potentially dangerous falsehoods about the coronavirus or vaccines have been unblocked. Musk also had the account of ex-President Donald Trump, who was blocked after the storming of the Capitol in January 2021 after encouraging his rioting supporters, reactivated after a poll among Twitter users was close. So far, Trump has preferred to stick to his own Twitter copy, Truth Social.
Amplifier of Right Views
Musk appears as an influential amplifier of right-wing political views to his approximately 136 million followers, who might otherwise not have seen many of these tweets and claims. For example, he himself accused the media of being “racist” against whites and insulted US President Joe Biden’s Democrats as a “party of division and hatred”. Some researchers have concluded that hate speech has increased on Twitter. Musk vehemently denied this in the BBC interview. However, Twitter no longer published the earlier transparency reports under him.
At the same time, Twitter must act within legal guidelines – and regulators have questions. In the USA, for example, the service is bound to promises made by the FTC consumer protection authority after earlier violations. According to US media reports, there are investigations into whether Twitter is sticking to it. Musk tried to meet the head of the agency, Lina Khan, but was rebuffed, the New York Times recently wrote. In Germany, a report that Twitter had temporarily artificially increased the reach of Musk’s tweets triggered investigations by the Bavarian State Center for New Media (BLM).
Musk denied that it was more than just a software bug. However, the software code for a recommendation algorithm disclosed by Twitter showed that there is a separate category for Musk’s tweets. When asked about this in a live stream, a Twitter developer said that they wanted to make sure that no one was disadvantaged when changes were made.