{"id":1197111,"date":"2023-10-27T12:30:03","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T16:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1197111"},"modified":"2023-10-27T12:30:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T16:30:03","slug":"what-we-got-right-and-wrong-about-elon-musks-takeover-of-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1197111","title":{"rendered":"What we got right (and wrong) about Elon Musk\u2019s takeover of Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exactly one year has passed since Elon Musk, fresh off a months-long legal battle that forced him to buy the company, strolled into<\/a> Twitter headquarters carrying a sink.<\/p>\n

At the time, we weren\u2019t entirely sure what to expect. But there were no shortage of predictions \u2014 including from us at Engadget \u2014 about just how messy<\/a> and chaotic Twitter might become under Musk\u2019s leadership. I\u2019ve spent the last week revisiting many of those stories, and I\u2019ve been struck by how, for a famously erratic CEO, just how predictable many aspects of his takeover have been.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before the acquisition closed, Musk spent months talking<\/a>, tweeting<\/a> and texting<\/a> about his plans for the platform. Many of those early statements, like promises to relax moderation rules and to create an edit button, have actually happened.<\/p>\n

But as is so often the case with Musk, even the most predictable of his decisions have played out in unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

Amnesty for Donald Trump and other banned accounts<\/h2>\n

Of all of Musk\u2019s plans for Twitter, one that drew the most headlines was his intention to restore Donald Trump\u2019s account. (He went as far as calling<\/a> the original ban a \u201cmorally bad decision.\u201d) While Musk\u2019s biographer claims he had some second thoughts<\/a> about the matter, he opted to reinstate the former president following the result of a poll<\/a> from his Twitter account.<\/p>\n

What many may not have fully anticipated was just how many former offenders Musk was willing to allow back on the platform. Despite his initial promise<\/a> that Twitter \u201ccannot become a free-for-all hellscape,\u201d Musk decided to offer \u201cgeneral amnesty\u201d<\/a> to more than 12,000<\/a> previously-banned accounts, including a number of neo-Nazis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The slow death of content moderation (and Twitter\u2019s ad business)<\/h2>\n

It was no secret that Musk wanted to loosen Twitter\u2019s content moderation rules. Before his takeover, he suggested that he was in favor of allowing all speech that was legal. While many pundits predicted advertisers could be wary of Musk\u2019s more permissive approach, it\u2019s hard to overstate just how dire the company\u2019s ad business has become over the last year.<\/p>\n

A majority of major advertisers have stopped<\/a> buying ads on the platform, despite CEO Linda Yaccarino\u2019s rosier (and misleading)<\/a> suggestions otherwise. Musk himself has admitted ad revenue has dropped at least 50 percent<\/a>. And The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported<\/a> this week that the banks that financed Musk\u2019s Twitter deal are expecting to lose hundreds of millions of dollars as it\u2019s become nearly impossible for them to offload the debt.<\/p>\n

More \u201ctransparency\u201d<\/h2>\n

One area that gave even some Musk critics a little bit of optimism was his insistence, prior to the acquisition, that he would bring a new level of transparency to the platform. He vowed<\/a> to open-source the company\u2019s recommendation algorithm, and pull back the curtain on the dreaded \u201cshadowban.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some respects, he\u2019s followed through. Code for the company\u2019s main recommendation algorithm is on Github<\/a>. X has also previewed alerts<\/a> that will notify users when their accounts have been restricted from search and other areas of the service.<\/p>\n

But those efforts may also be more shallow than what some had hoped for. Publishing \u201cthe algorithm\u201d didn\u2019t actually reveal much<\/a> about the inner workings of the platform, according to those who have studied it. Users still have very little insight into how posts are prioritized or how accounts not belonging<\/a> to Elon Musk can expand their reach.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Musk has taken a number of steps that have dramatically reduced outsiders\u2019 ability to understand how information spreads on X. Musk dismantled the company\u2019s previously open and accessible APIs in favor of tools that now cost tens of thousands of dollars a month for much more limited insights. Paywalling has had a devastating impact on researchers<\/a>, the vast majority of whom can no longer afford to access the limited data that is available via X\u2019s API.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut wait,\u201d I can already hear a few people screaming from the comments, \u201cwHaT aBoUt ThE tWiTteR fiLeS? Surely, that<\/em> is transparency?\u201d<\/p>\n

While Musk\u2019s decision to selectively leak the messages of former employees was unprecedented and potentially illegal<\/a>, the truth is that the so-called \u201cTwitter Files\u201d didn\u2019t actually reveal all that much <\/a>about how Twitter operated. And the company\u2019s own lawyers have refuted<\/a>, in court, that the details within them are proof of any kind of government censorship or overreach.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the disclosures themselves weren\u2019t all that\u2026 transparent. Partial documents were only provided to a couple of writers \u2014 handpicked by Musk \u2014 who only published snippets of Slack messages, emails and screenshots from Twitter\u2019s internal tools. The underlying documents have still not been released in their entirety, or provided to other media outlets for dissemination. Even Jack Dorsey said<\/a> it would have been better, and more transparent, to release everything \u201cWikileaks style\u201d for all to see, rather than selectively tweeting out bits and pieces.<\/p>\n

X and the \u201ceverything app\u201d<\/h2>\n

Shortly before his takeover, Musk tweeted<\/a> that \u201cbuying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.\u201d At the time, many people assumed Musk was talking about emulating WeChat<\/a>, which in China is used for almost all facets of daily life from shopping to messaging to banking.<\/p>\n

However, one year later, it\u2019s still not entirely clear what he means or how the service formerly known as Twitter will transform itself into something resembling an \u201ceverything app.\u201d There are some signs of change: He and CEO Linda Yaccarino have said they want to add banking and other financial services<\/a> to X. The platform has also introduced new features like video calling<\/a> and is planning on adding live shopping<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The WeChat comparison breaks down, however, when you consider that, while WeChat is unquestionably the most dominant app in China, Twitter is, at best, the sixth-most<\/a> popular social media app in the US. And the app\u2019s usage has been sharply declining <\/a>for the last year. There may be room to expand the types of features offered on X, but it\u2019s not clear they\u2019ll result in a significant boost in popularity or engagement.<\/p>\n

The existential threats to Twitter<\/h2>\n

If you had told me a year ago that Musk\u2019s decisions would be so unpopular it would lead to a mass exodus from the platform, I wouldn\u2019t have been surprised. Threatening to rage-quit Twitter over even the most minor of changes is a time honored tradition.<\/p>\n

But if you had told me that in less than a year, there would be a surge in upstart alternatives that are starting to feel like viable challengers, I would have been less credulous. And if you had told me that, a year later, the strongest-looking challenger was a fediverse-compatible platform created by Meta, I definitely wouldn\u2019t have believed it.<\/p>\n

But, with a year of hindsight, it strikes me that perhaps the most significant part of Musk\u2019s legacy so far is not what he\u2019s done to the service previously known as Twitter, but the wave of new platforms inspired by his actions.<\/p>\n

Bluesky, previously a backwater Twitter offshoot, has surged to a million<\/a> users, despite still being an invitation-only network. Mastodon and the fediverse, both of which predate Musk\u2019s takeover, are more popular than ever. And Meta, which has a previously dismal track record at building its own apps (not called Facebook) that people like, has managed to make Threads into a viable (if flawed) alternative.<\/p>\n

None of these are perfect replacements for what old Twitter was, at its best. And they may not be able to sustain their momentum for years to come, but Musk\u2019s chaotic takeover of Twitter has ushered in what many believe to be a new era<\/a> of social media. It feels increasingly possible that we may look back at the end of Twitter and the rise of X as a boon for a better version of social media.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/what-we-got-right-and-wrong-about-elon-musks-takeover-of-twitter-163003061.html?src=rss
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\nSource: Engadget – What we got right (and wrong) about Elon Musk\u2019s takeover of Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exactly one year has passed since Elon Musk, fresh off a months-long legal battle that forced him to buy the company, strolled into Twitter headquarters carrying a sink. At the time, we weren\u2019t entirely sure what to expect. But there … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1197111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1197111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1197111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1197111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1197111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}