1. “Comedy is now legal on Twitter” – Elon Musk
Humor is one of the sweet things in life that shouldn’t be taken for granted. In late October 2022, after acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk tweeted “Comedy is now legal on Twitter.” The Twitter Press Department is now an automated response email that sends anyone back an instant poo poo emoji. You may try it for yourself at press@twitter.com
2. Rapid Product Improvement at Twitter
In a kind gesture to independent writers who have distanced themselves from mainstream media and their constant quest for clickbait, Elon Musk explained he would be, “Increasing long form to 10k characters soon, along with simple formatting tools, and making it much easier for writers to charge subscription fees for premium content.”
3. Helpful Community Notes arrives on scene
Apparently, I am not the only person who took joy in reading tweets with added helpful context. Within 24 hours of the announcement, the Twitter account for Helpful Community Notes went from almost no followers to 40K followers. The account description says, “Keep up-to-date with the Community Notes people are finding helpful.”
From deep fake photos of Trump in jail, corrections on historical dates to satire that could be misinterpreted and more – Helpful Community Notes fast became an addicting account to follow that shows the value of healthy skepticism.
UPDATE (4/5/2023) Elon Musk tweeted that, “Critically, Community Notes applies equally to every account on this platform without exception, including world leaders & our biggest advertisers.”
4. Twitter Will Avoid Being a Hellscape like Facebook, here’s how…
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Reddit are where many people hang out daily. Bots and trolls are common on most social media and are hard to control and Elon Musk was never fearful of storming into the battle to eliminate them. He explained this on March 18, 2023:
“Any true human can get verified. It’s only $7/month if bought annually via web (without App Store 30% premium).
Yes, non-advertising revenue sources are important, so that this platform is not overly reliant on the whims of corporate America, but having a large number of verified accounts will also clean up the system.
A single desktop computer can create thousands of fake accounts for <1/10th of a penny and the latest AI can get past any “are you human?” checks.
The choices are either move to a verified system or social media becomes a bot/troll hellscape like FB.”
Elon Musk
5. “You are influential and smart!” – Elon Musk
Few people at Twitter in the days prior to Elon Musk’s ownership would have imagined Twitter usage would grow under Elon Musk’s ownership but it did.
My opinion is that the niche ideology of the San Francisco Bay area contributed to a narrow, weak platform heading rapidly into bankruptcy with out-of-control expenses and high salaries. Wine flowed freely from the taps for those that managed to saunter into work while most pretended to work from home, avoiding the office entirely. Just in case any former Twitter employees read this, know that I would be right there with you. The old Twitter sounds like it was a sweet place to work (I am guilty of being more of a slacker at times than you, typical Austin-style), and it was a business model that made profit with questionable placement of ads so it was not sustainable and it did not promote free speech. Enter, Elon Musk. Things changed for the better.
“This platform is growing fast! Just exceeded 8 billion user-minutes per day … of the most influential, smartest people on Earth ; )” Elon Musk
Deep in most people’s psyches, there’s a desire to be known as smart and influential. If you are told you are smart and influential you’ll likely feel pretty good. Elon Musk was raised by Maye Musk, known to be a positive, affirming person. It is not surprising that Elon would reflect this kindness in his treatment of others, both on and off Twitter. Both times I met Elon Musk in person, he radiated kindness. Both on and off Twitter, he can make you feel validated as a person. Freedom of speech and removal of suppression is important on Elon Musk’s Twitter. A not-so-calm sense of urgency permeates the air around Elon Musk. This would surely include the important task of getting Twitter up to speed.
6. There are two sides to every coin
Twitter user Bill Ackman said, “How about a feature that serves you the most-liked tweets that take the opposite side of the argument that you just viewed? We should always want to know the best case against a view we have come to believe. The truth is often revealed when the best advocates for opposing points of view are heard.” Elon Musk replied, “Good idea.”
Unencumbered by a sluggish Board of Directors, Twitter began evolving into what the people want in real-time from the beginning of Elon Musk’s ownership. Speed is the name of the game.
7. “You get what you pay for” – Elon Musk
Viral Tweets are usually laden with replies. How they are viewed varies and on March 18, Elon Musk announced,
In the coming weeks, Twitter will prioritize replies by:
1. People you follow
2. Verified accounts
3. Unverified accounts
Verified accounts are 1000X harder to game by bot & troll armies. There is great wisdom to the old saying: “You get what you pay for.”
8. Hate speech on Twitter is lower than expected
Elon Musk endeavored to identify hate speech and attack it head-on. He hired experts at Sprinklr to quantify hate speech.
Sprinklr’s model scored slur Tweets on “toxicity,” and the likelihood that they constituted hate speech.
Sprinklr defines hate speech more narrowly by evaluating slurs in the nuanced context of their use.
The old version of Twitter took a broader view of the potential toxicity of slur usage. The new Twitter is improved under Elon Musk.
Twitter safety explained, “Our focal metric is hate speech impressions, not the number of Tweets containing slurs. Most slur usage is not hate speech, but when it is, we work to reduce its reach. Sprinklr’s analysis found that hate speech receives 67% fewer impressions per Tweet than non-toxic slur Tweets.”
Elon Musk explained,
“This is a critical distinction. It’s obviously trivial for a single person to create 10k bot accounts on one computer, each of which is tweeting slurs that are written to avoid text string detection.
What matters is whether those tweets are actually shown to real users.” Elon Musk
Conclusion
Can Twitter move ahead any faster than under the ownership of Elon Musk? Probably not. Here’s this week’s updates.
- The Twitter Press Department is an automated response email that sends anyone back an instant poo poo emoji
- Writers will soon enjoy publishing on Twitter up to 10k characters soon, along with simple formatting tools so entire articles can be published on Twitter
- Helpful Community Notes made a debut this week. There’s no better way to keep up to date with Community Notes that people find helpful
- Removing bots/trolls is possible with Twitter’s paid verified system and without that feature, it could drift toward becoming a bot/troll hellscape like FB
- Twitter usage is growing, exceeding 8 billion user-minutes per day as of March 2023
- Actual impressions of tweets containing defined hate speech receive 67% fewer impressions. Elon Musk explained that though these tweets may exist, they are rarely shown to users.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – March 22, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.
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