July 24, 2023, at the X HQ in SF, a giant pink hashtag with a bird on it, was moved out.
The end of the birds.
Removing the birds, and changing the signage is less important than the incredible changes that Elon Musk brought.
They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Elon brought that sunlight. The Twitter Files are a gift to humanity. All are worth reading, absorbing, and learning from.
Elon found a way to take control of a large & financially failing company — and save it. I am impressed with the strategic moves he made to transform X into a startup.
Finding the best engineers for the job at X is critical. If you look at Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink the Boring company, you might think that was thoroughly enough for one man to achieve in his lifetime.
This is why Twitter could not be something Elon “bought” but rather “X” be something that he started. From that stemmed what may be one of the most important companies of our time: xAI.
I asked one of my sons what he would want to talk about with Elon if he could meet him. “Time management. How does he manage his time? How does he achieve doing so much? I would like to know his methods.”
Once in a rare while, a very rare while, humanity throughout history is given a gift. Elon Musk is one of those gifts.
If you enjoyed this article, follow and subscribe to Gail Alfar on X at @gailalfaratx
It’s early in the morning and I wake up and… check Twitter. If this is you then you’ll love this article as it takes you through the past week of Twitter in minutes and you get to read about Twitter. From lawsuits to engineering advancements, Twitter 2.0 is not boring.
Elon Musk’s role at Twitter is executive chairman, and chief technical officer overseeing product, software, and system operations. Linda Yaccarino is CEO of Twitter (and doing a great job). Twitter has improved under their leadership. Additionally, Tesla is thriving under Elon’s leadership as Technoking of Tesla and CEO, as reported in Tesla’s Q2 2023 Update Report. So, when Sen Elizabeth Warren suddenly came along to throw false accusations at Elon Musk and the Tesla board, it was cringe, to say the least. Elon’s legal team responded…
TWITTER TO SUBPOENA SEN. WARREN
Twitter legal informed a federal court on Thurs, July 20 that they’re seeking for Sen.Warren to disclose her communications with the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission from the past few months. This includes the document she sent to SEC Chair Gensler, where she falsely accused Elon Musk of harming Tesla.
META CAN NOT LEGALLY COPY TWITTER (THE MOST IMPORTANT COMPANY)
Meanwhile, Twitter has addressed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s haphazardly created “Threads” app. Representing Twitter, Lawyer Alex Spiro sent Zuckerburg a cease-and-desist letter saying, “Twitter has serious concerns that Meta has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
Alex Spiro said of Twitter last March,
“Once you get to Twitter, you realize the geopolitical significance, the significance across so many different things, thought, speech, the community of viewpoints. You realize it may actually be the most interesting and important company in the world.” (Vanity Fair Interview, March 2023)
Sadly, in the past year, Zuckerburg’s “Meta” hired many ex-Twitter employees to gain access to Twitter’s trade secrets and highly confidential information. Meta then assigned these employees to develop their copycat “Threads” app in a few months, with the sole intent of using Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property to accelerate their copycat “Threads” app. This is a violation of state and federal laws and the employees’ ongoing obligations to Twitter.
Competition can be a good thing, but cheating is always wrong.
Elon Musk said it well, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”
So, as the copycat app “Threads” reaches an all-time low in interest, Twitter continues to employ hard-core engineering, 24/7 under the direction of Elon Musk. What cannot be underestimated, is the high value of having Elon Musk, as chief technician at Twitter. Not only will Twitter become one of the top places alongside SpaceX and Tesla to work as a software engineer, but Twitter will eventually become so advanced in software engineering that it will become the gold standard, assuming it isn’t already.
TWITTER IS A VALUE-ADDED APP
In an incredibly short amount of time, Twitter became an app with a generous toolbox for writers, creators, artists, and more!
Twitter‘s publishing capability can now extend to essentially an unlimited amount. Is possible to publish an entire encyclopedia on Twitter, if somebody wanted to!
Don’t be surprised if Twitter is used by teachers extensively due to the usefulness of having books directly on Twitter combined with an extensive bookmark system available on the app, as well as an entire safety team dedicated to making sure abuse, hate, and threats are de-amplified on the app.
I’ll end this article with my heartfelt thoughts. It is difficult for me to understand why anybody would want to work against what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter. He is allowing creators on Twitter to share ad revenue, which brings income to places far and wide in this world. It brings needed income to places where, truly, it could be the income that a family needs to provide a living. These opportunities have never been available before and can provide amplification of talent, art, and culture. Make no mistake, Twitter is not just for North America, its reach is global, and so the goodness that it can provide through education, books in different languages, and creative and unique art, are for the good of all humanity.
It truly pains me to think that Zuck, Warren, and others, would love to see Twitter fail. The memes I’m sharing with this article are useful for making humor out of senseless acts of intended destruction. Twitter 2.0 will prevail, for the benefit of humanity!
Meta CEO Zuckerburg coped Twitter illegally.
This article is by Gail Alfar please credit accordingly and thanks for your support.
Creator Ads Revenue Sharing is exclusive to Elon Musk’s Twitter 2.0. It did not exist with the Twitter 1.0 business model.
“Absolutely essential. Creators need to make a living!” – Elon Musk on 11/1/22 after buying Twitter on 10/27/22
Twitter made history with a generous new program to share advertising revenue with creators. This was one of Elon Musk’s intentions from the very beginning when he purchased Twitter. Since his purchase, Twitter has improved dramatically through Elon’s deliberate shift in prioritizing technology and software at Twitter.
On July 13, Twitter selected an initial group of talented creators, and they were invited to accept ad revenue payment. I’ll share a few of their enthusiastic comments later in this article.
WHEN CAN MORE CREATORS APPLY FOR AD REV SHARING?
Twitter plans to roll out Creator Ads Revenue Sharing more broadly later this month and all eligible creators will be able to apply. When the program goes wide, Twitter will have tens of thousands of people applying, so I expect the program to take some time to regulate.
Here are a few of the requirements:
Be subscribed to Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations
Must be in a country where Stripe supports payouts
Have at least 5M impressions on posts in each of the last 3 months per Twitter analytics
Pass human review for Creator Monetization Standards. This process may take time.
Twitter says, “You cannot feature the identity of another person or a fake identity that is intended to deceive others. This includes parody, fan, and commentary accounts.”
REACTIONS TO TWITTER REV SHARING ARE HEARTFELT
I have seen many positive comments about the program, here are a few:
Kanekoa The Great was chosen to share in Twitter ad revenue, he said,
“Twitter 1.0 silenced me for expressing my opinions. Twitter 2.0 rewards me for sharing my ideas. Thank you Twitter for the opportunity to earn a living! Gratitude to Elon Musk for investing $44 billion to revive freedom of speech on the internet!”
Alex Larusso (ALX) said,
“Less than a year ago, I was banned from this platform, now I’m getting paid to Tweet. This is a game changer. Thank you Twitter!”
Nick Sorter shared his enthusiasm,
“Independent journalists like myself can literally make a living off Twitter now reporting REAL, censorship-free stories that you won’t see in the mainstream media. This is HUGE. Can’t thank you enough, Elon Musk! THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
My favorite reaction was from Billy Marcus, who simply shared,
“i like twitter”
MORE TWITTER IMPROVEMENTS!
Before I leave you, I’d like to share a few more Twitter updates,
Elon Musk responded to a meme that communicated the importance of people being free to express themselves without fear of being fired by their employers for different opinions. For this reason, Twitter will continue to allow anonymous accounts to be verified.
Twitter quietly unveiled an icon to appear on video content that lets you connect directly to watch content on your big-screen TV.
You can also watch videos from Twitter while scrolling using the pic-in-pic video feature.
Twitter has made improvements so that, on average, it will only take 1-2 days for a new account to be verified or for a blue check to be restored after changing a profile picture or username.
Jessica Kirsh, a space history archivist, uncovered that Twitter now limits how many accounts you can “tag” in a tweet. This is a good feature to limit potential spam. Imagine a longform tweet tagging hundreds of people?
Advertising on Twitter aims to reach people who may need the products they see, and therefore only human views of ads matter. On July 5th, Thomas Slabbers observed, “There is an even greater assurance that ads are reaching real humans since these view limits primarily impact automated entities rather than human users.” Elon Musk responded, saying “Unless bots start buying things at scale, only human views count.”
Will you find our next job through Twitter’s upcoming Verified Organizations jobs feature? Twitter plans to allow companies to post up to 5 jobs. The feature is a way to “feature jobs on your company profile, and attract top talent to your open positions.”
SEE YOU ON TWITTER!
I’ve been an observer of Elon Musk’s unmatched style of using technology to allow Twitter to evolve rapidly. After closing the Twitter deal, Elon Musk said on 11/13/2022,
“It’s just that Twitter at its core is a software and servers company. The technology needs to evolve rapidly, which requires a technologist.”
Elon Musk adds something else to Twitter. He adds kindness and has the ability to make people feel valued. Creator Ads Revenue Sharing is an act of kindness that will forever set Twitter/X.Corp apart from all other attempts at social media. Additionally, Elon himself generously gave all of his revenue to other creators,
“I gave my share to the creator payout pool.” – Elon Musk
Happy Tweeting and I’ll see you on Twitter!This article by Gail Alfar. Please credit accordingly. Since January 2022, I have been writing and recording many of Elon Musks’ talks on my blog and here in order to preserve his important words in writing. My blog link is on my Twitter bio and I thank you for reading and for your support. You rock and you are part of Team Humanity! Thank you! Mentioned are Jessica Kirsch, Thomas Slabbers @Thomasslabbers @KanekoaTheGreat @ALX @nicksortor and Billy Markus.
When Elon Musk accused journalist Matt Taibbi of being an employee of Substack, a publishing platform, and that same platform of stealing data from Twitter, my first reaction was that Elon would not have said any of this without evidence even though Taibbi and Substack’s CEO were both denying this. This led me to examine what happened more carefully.
I also think it’s critical for us to pause a moment and seek the truth. With this in mind, I asked Elon for context for the sake of this article. As you well know, I write articles that support the mission of Twitter 2.0 (X.corp.)
My publication, “WhatsUpTwitter” was founded November 2022. My goal is to “create a publication that strives to communicate accurate information about Twitter and leave the reader feeling hopeful and optimistic about the future.”
This article is about an insidious attempt to destroy Twitter and sheds light on what really happened
As the first week of April rolled along, I watched what I think is one of the most insidious attacks so far on Twitter 2.0 since Elon Musk bought it. Even more so is the intensity of the sense of betrayal. A journalist who Elon Musk trusted not only stabbed him in the back, (in my opinion), but his actions showed that he wanted Twitter to fail. Again, this is my personal opinion.
Substack’s copycat social media app looks almost identical to Twitter, accompanies their blogging site, and is called “Substack Notes.” This is alarming considering Elon Musk’s explanation that the platform was trying to download a large portion of the Twitter database.
“Substack was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone, so their IP address is obviously untrusted.”– Elon Musk
Bootstrapping is a technique of loading a program into a computer by means of a few initial instructions which enable the introduction of the rest of the program from an input device, and this is what Substack was doing to create “Substack Notes,” so that is why it looks like a rip-off of Twitter because it is!
To further add salt to the open wound, a prominent writer of the Twitter Files announced that he was leaving Twitter for Substack Notes. It later came to light that he, by his own wording, is an employee of Substack.
Matt Taibbi Declines Activating Twitter Subscriptions
It is well-known that Matt Taibbi released many Twitter Files threads. I wrote about that in many previous articles.
With a large following and his notoriety on Twitter for releasing the Twitter Files (a generous gesture from Elon Musk), it seems it would make sense to take advantage of the Twitter subscription feature. I know that I would if it were me. I wrote in February about how writers with subscriptions activated will be able to publish directly on Twitter and get paid for it by adding essays as attachments to tweets.
An important context for this is that Taibbi declined Twitter subscriptions on the pretense that people would say he was an employee of Twitter. Why? And why would Substack choose this time to release their counterfeit version of Twitter? Perhaps because of the gained fame of some of its leading writers with paid subs (on Substack) to raise free awareness through the use of Twitter. And how did they gain in popularity? Certainly, the release of the Twitter Files was a big factor.
In my opinion, it feels like Substack wants to directly compete with and possibly ruin Twitter. And that prominent writer, Matt Taibbi, announced that he planned to leave Twitter and give up the opportunity to dual post his writing on both Twitter and Substack.
Taibbi also declined to activate paid subscriptions on his Twitter account, which currently has 1.8 million followers. He could have many Twitter Subscribers and make a wonderful income as many people are already doing on Twitter.
In a private email, Elon Musk shared some important context with me which made clear that Taibbi declined Twitter subscriptions on the pretense that people would say he was an employee of Twitter. Taibbi said that Twitter didn’t work for him professionally, questioned how he could market his work, and that if he were to post his articles to Twitter and enable subscription service, “people would say I’m essentially an employee of Twitter and both of us would never hear the end of it.”
Elon pointed out that Twitter isn’t giving Taibbi extra reach or any free advertising and rhetorically asked if the people using YouTube to post videos and earn money creating content were considered employees. He has an excellent point there. YouTube, TikTok, and other social media platforms pay users for content creation although they are not actual employees.
In response to this, Taibbi said “The optics of that would be really bad journalistic ethics-wise.”
In my opinion, Taibbi is choosing to support Substack which wants to ruin Twitter. And the excuse of “journalistic ethics” is weak. Taibbi was, in his own words, a Substack employee. Keep reading for proof.
Taibbi’s Work With Substack
Message thread with Elon Musk and Matt Taibbi. Used with permission. Image was also public on Twitter on April 10 for about 1 hour.
In the above message thread, Taibbi himself admits that he was/is employed by Substack.
What wasn’t apparent to most people was that Taibbi was, all along, part of the paid Substack Pro, or Substack Professionals program. Taibbi wrote about this in a newsletter that came to my inbox. Taibbi left out the details of just what his historical association was with Substack, and how much money he had gained and is currently receiving from Substack.
Substack was founded in 2017. In 2018, founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Matt Taibbi, posted onHacker News,
“We’re Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie, the founders of Substack (YC W18), and Matt Taibbi, a journalist and author who has written four best-sellers and is a contributing editor to the Rolling Stone. Substack is a tool that makes it simple for a writer to start a paid newsletter – but we’re also experimenting with other models for online publishing. For instance, Matt is using Substack to serialize a novel called The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing: Adventures of the Unidentified Black Male, which you can see here.
Matt has so far published six chapters in the book. The serial is an experiment for him, too, but even when it’s done he intends to keep publishing his independent work through Substack. We thought it might be interesting to bring Matt into a Hacker News discussion about this model, other things that might be tried, and the state of online publishing generally.”
My firm belief is that Matt Taibbi was getting paid for and was working for Substack. I believe Elon Musk is correct when he asserted that Matt is employed by Substack.
Conclusion
The truth always has a way of coming to light. We will never truly know the motives of those journalists who took advantage of Elon’s generosity when releasing the Twitter Files. Yes, they performed a valuable service. However, Taibbi’s actions show that he was never on Twitter’s or Elon’s side. Running to the competitor, who he said was his employer, when given the opportunity to monetize his own Twitter account, is, in my opinion, proof of this.
Those who want Elon Musk to fail, in my mind, are fine with humanity being doomed. Perhaps this seems an exaggeration but I fully believe that Elon’s heart is focused on helping all of humanity itself and this is why he bought Twitter.
He purchased it with the solid intention of providing a digital town square for humanity. Tesla and SpaceX are philanthropy and so is Twitter.
Prior to Elon Musk, Twitter was raking in advertising profits based on the amount of likes advertising posts would get, but many of those likes turned out to be bots. Twitter’s ad placement also had a net negative effect on companies as they were placed next to viral posts, and it is now widely known that some of those “viral posts” contained CSAM (child sexual abuse material).
As Twitter, now officially X.corp, moves forward with the mission, it is clear that Substack Notes won’t be able to compete and their sad attempt to kill Twitter will one day be remembered only as a small glitch.
Austin, Congress Street, and the Capitol. Image Courtesy Shane Ware.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – April 11, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 (X.corp) and Elon Musk in both making lives better on Earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. I write these articles, I will not use AI of any form to write them, they are time-consuming and I appreciate the opportunity to do this.
Elon Musk tweets a meme about Dogecoin and Twitter
Welcome back to my weekly blog! All my articles seek to document the ongoing story of how Elon Musk is transforming Twitter for the better. There were a lot of exciting changes this past week and I’ll try to summarize all of them for you!
Twitter Verified Organizations went Global
The Recommendation Algorithm AND Community Notes are open-source on GitHub
Elon Musk talked live on Twitter Spaces (transcript)
Dogecoin Logo Appears on Twitter! (update 4/7/23 doge logo disappeared)
Twitter sign Becomes Titter!
“If Twitter can be the least imperfect place to find the truth on the internet, then I will consider that we have done a good job.” – Elon Musk
Twitter Verified Organizations became available globally
Twitter Verified Organizations are how organizations and their affiliates can distinguish themselves on Twitter. Twitter allows the Verified Organization to fully control vetting and verifying accounts they’re affiliated with.
To connect people with accounts affiliated with the organization, each account features an affiliate badge on its profile with the organization’s logo. It is easy to find these accounts because they are featured on the organization’s Twitter profile.
Twitter’s beta program included sports teams, news organizations, financial firms, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits. Now Verified Organizations is rolling out globally to all interested businesses, nonprofits, governments, and multilateral organizations. But there was one organization that loudly protested Twitter’s new offer, that was the New York Times.
New York Times
The New York Times decided to forgo any type of verification leading to dramatic news stories across the internet and funny comments from Elon Musk. The New York Times drama only served as free advertising for Twitter’s new Verified Organization program.
Twitter seeks to gain the trust of the people, and one way to do that is to open-source codes.
GitHub and Twitter Transparency
Now there are two source codes available to all on GitHub!
The goal of our open source endeavor is to provide full transparency to you, our users, about how our systems work.
We’ve released the code powering our recommendations that you can view here (and here) to understand our algorithm in greater detail, and we are also working on several features to provide you greater transparency within our app.
Some of the new developments we have planned include:
- A better Twitter analytics platform for creators with more information on reach and engagement
- Greater transparency into any safety labels applied to your Tweets or account
- Greater visibility into why Tweets appear on your timeline
With so many changes happening, Elon Musk spoke on a LIVE Twitter space on April 1st.
Live Conversation with Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces
April Fool’s Day brought many pranks and also a delightful talk with Elon Musk LIVE on Twitter Spaces!
Here is a transcript of the highlights of the conversation:
“We’ll be adding in the ability to do voice DM. Through DMs, you’ll be able to speak to someone through a voice chat or a video chat. So if you’ve got a DM group and you want to turn that into private Spaces or an audio chat or a video chat, you can do so. I think it would be kind of cool to have a conversation with someone else without having to give away your phone number. There’s some pretty insightful people at Twitter talking about Twitter being like “Trust” as a service and really that is kind of what we’re going for. It’s to try to be the most trusted place on the internet in a world where so many people and entities and governments are trying to influence you and in a lot of cases try to trick you with information that isn’t true. Where can you go that is the most trusted, or where is the information you can actually count on? Which is not to say that Twitter is perfect, but if Twitter can be the least imperfect place to find the truth on the internet, then I will consider that we have done a good job.” – Elon Musk
Dogecoin Logo Appears on Twitter!
Dogecoin logo appears on Twitter. Image courtesy @cb_doge on Twitter
On April 3, people started noticing a Dogecoin logo had replaced the blue bird logo in the top sidebar area of Twitter (and it appears in other places too). Elon Musk has always liked Dogecoin, “the people’s currency.” He has mentioned it is more fun because it has dogs and memes. (update 4/7/23 the sneaky little doge disappeared and was replaced with the twitter bird logo)
The playful and sly-looking character of the Shiba Inu dog is delightful to many people, especially to children! Artists and fans of Dogecoin (including Elon Musk) reacted with joy and celebrated with creating memes. I’m sharing a few examples below! Elon is always ready for humor, and the next day he pulled another prank!
Twitter sign Becomes Titter
On March 5, an image was shared by @softwarejameson on Twitter. A photo (see below) showing the Official Twitter HQ Building was shared and the “W” in the sign was covered up! This was verified by other videos.
Fans all over the internet began to meme and comment on how Elon was making good on a promise last year when he asked in a survey, “Delete the w in twitter?”
Fans create AI Art for Twitter and Dogecoin
Doge and Twitter are perfect for each other. Image Courtesy @itsALLrisky One of the best collabs all year, Twitter and Doge. Twitter Bird over X. Unknown artist.Image Twitter HQ with the W taken out. Courtesy @softwarejameson on Twitter
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – April 6, 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. I write these articles, I will not use AI of any form to write them, they are time-consuming and I appreciate the opportunity to do this.
Twitter continues to improve and grow and attract new users as it has quickly become the number one App people choose to download on the Apple app store for news.
This article will sum up some of the improvements to expect in Twitter mentioned so far in January by official Twitter accounts and Elon Musk.
Twitter said ‘Au revoir’ to Revue! Elon Musk asked his followers if they felt Twitter should keep Revue. The great majority of Twitter users replied that they do not use it, many did not even know what it was. Jan 18 marks the last day for this newsletter/email subscription feature that was rarely used
Elon Musk encouraged corporations to use their free Twitter accounts to tweet. Elon said,
“Companies in general are missing the incredible opportunity
that Twitter provides to reach customers.
Just Tweet interesting things!
That’s all it takes.” – Elon Musk
Elon Musk explains Verified Tweets
Elon Musk said in response to a question from Brayden Fox, “Twitter Verified tweets are more likely to be recommended to others, as they are less likely to be bots or troll farms.”
Elon also said, “Trashing accounts that you hate will cause our algorithm to show you more of those accounts, as it is keying off of your interactions. Basically saying if you love trashing *that* account, then you will probably also love trashing *this* account. Not actually wrong.
Twitter’s Algorithms will be open sourced
Transparency is important to gain trust and Elon Musk is making good on his commitment to open source Twitter’s recommendation algorithm. Elon said, “The recommendation algorithm will get much better and it will be open source”
Verification for Organizations to launch soon
Twitter Blue for Business is being renamed. The official Twitter account tweeted: “We will soon launch Verification for Organizations, formerly known as Blue for Business. Today, you can apply for early access via our waitlist here.”
Twitter to add Formatting Features
Elon said, “We will also be adding simple formatting features like bold, underline & font size later this quarter. The goal is to allow people to publish long-form natively on Twitter, rather than forcing them to use another website. Twitter will continue to recommend brevity in tweets.”
Blue users can upload 10 minute video content
Twitter users who enjoy the Blue subscription can upload videos that are 10 minutes long. I was able to upload the first episode of my new Twitter-only podcast, “Gail’s Tesla Podcast.”
Gail’s Tesla Podcast #1 Starting using FSD. How to start FSD and go around corners and other hacks. We’ll go get burgers together! Our first 10 minute video for you! pic.twitter.com/nuJmmtbdIO
Would you like to read the Twitter Files? They are being continuously updated and archived here on The Twitter Files Archive. “This is where you will find the Twitter threads written by independent journalists like Matt Taibbi. These threads are converted into long-form articles for those not on Twitter or who may have a hard time trying to find the threads.”
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 18, 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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My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider an annual donation to support!
Do you pay $8 or $11 to have Twitter Blue? Did you sign up for this monthly because you wanted the blue verification check? Initially, I wanted the check and that is the main reason I signed up.
I was going to cancel my monthly Blue payment as I was going on 2 months without being verified. I asked myself if there was anything else worth keeping Blue active for besides the check. After some thought, I decided I would keep paying the monthly with or without the blue check. This article explains why.
Only Twitter Blue allows you to set up a hexagonal profile picture
Only Twitter Blue allows videos up to 10 minutes
Only Twitter Blue allows you to edit tweets
Only Twitter Blue allows folders
Twitter Blue allows you to set up a hexagonal profile picture
I waited patiently for the blue check and then asked myself if I thought I was up to the task of setting up a hexagonal profile picture. It turns out it was a fun project. I took a picture of myself that I liked and minted it onto the Ethereum blockchain. After a few weird steps I ended up with the hexagon. I think it looks cool. Even cooler was that I learned a lot about NFTs. The funniest thing I learned was from my 17-year-old kid who knows a lot about crypto. “Mom, you’re a little late to the NFT party, but I guess Twitter has a deal with the NFT crowd.” I laughed so hard. NFTs may not be super popular, but for use on Twitter, I think they will always be cool.
Twitter Blue allows videos up to 10 minutes
Originally I did not care about this perk, but then I started asking myself why I didn’t care when I was busy uploading videos to my Youtube channel. Yes, I have a pretty lame youtube channel named: Gail Alfar. Anyway, I decided to use the Twitter video feature to start a weekly podcast called “Gail’s Tesla Podcast.” After I decided this, I realized that the Blue check was starting to matter less to me. The video feature mattered far more. Please pass my podcast on to anyone you know who has a Tesla. (I will include link here after I release the first episode)
Twitter Blue allows you to edit tweets
Edit tweets is a cool function. You have 30 minutes to do it and being the Austin Texas weirdo that I am, I sometimes edit tweets just because I want to see the little cute edit pen attached to the tweet. Here’s one example I did, see if you can see the little edit icon.
Twitter Blue allows folders
Okay so I wrote about folders in another article but I did not mention to you that I have over 20 folders. They are very useful and detailed. They help me pull up information that I need for articles and save things for me to look at later.
The famed blue verification check is cool to have, and it should not be your only reason for paying the $8/$11. I encourage you to use these other features. If you decide not to renew your monthly Blue, I think that’s ok because having a free Twitter account is a great thing too.
CONCLUSION
I waited approximately 2 months for my account to be verified so that I could have the blue check. But in the meantime of waiting, I discovered some cool things about Twitter blue, which include the hexagon profile pic, 10-minute video uploads, the edit button and expansive use of file folders.
My patience taught me this valuable lesson. I don’t think I would want Twitter blue just for the blue verification check.
UPDATE: At time of publishing this article, TWITTER GRANTED ME THE BLUE CHECK! OH JOY!
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 11, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support the new Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization. My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
Elon Musk shared an image on Twitter showing the titles of 3 books and the words, “YOU ARE HERE” in the middle. Let’s take a look at these 3 books and discuss how the Twitter files relate.
We’ll also look at Elon’s Twitter poll asking “Elon Musk should” a. Stay out of politics or b. Keep shooting his feet. 57.2% were in favor of “Keep shooting his feet.”
Most people approve of Elon Musk staying political on Twitter.
1. Brave New World, 1932
In a society where the “World Controllers” mastered genetic science to “perfect” the human race, humans are nothing more than ‘Alpha-plus mandarins and epsilon-minus semi-morons’ designed to perform menial tasks and educated to be blissfully content with pre-destined roles. Intellectual curiosity, a sense of history and scientific innovation are frowned upon because they threaten the ruling class’s power over the masses.
The purpose of all these distractions is to keep people contented so they don’t question the world around them. Society is designed to reject the consumption of old things—like Shakespeare, which is banned. This is another way to promote continuous consumption, because if people value old, outdated things (like old books and higher-quality, longer-lasting items) they won’t have any reason to buy new things.
Things from past eras when society functioned differently often contain deeper meaning and would inspire people to think critically, whereas new forms of entertainment encourage people to focus on the present only. Huxley himself gave advice for resisting this brave new world,
“Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.”
The Twitter Files are Elon Musk’s way of clearing the decks. Elon explained it this way,
“I think it’s important to, like if you know if we’re going to be trusted in the future to kind of clear the decks for stuff that’s happened in the past so to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.(laughter from all) Haha, so … is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true? So far, they all turned out to be true. And if not more true than people thought.” –Elon Musk, All-In Podcast
Matt Taibbi wrote “Twitter Files: Why Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In” about how once Twitter began rolling over for Congress in 2017, the ending was inevitable: formal surrender to the intelligence community on content moderation. Matt Taibbi shared,
1.THREAD: The Twitter Files How Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In
When George Orwell published this book in 1949 it was around the same time as Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, House Un-American Activities Committee accused Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union sealed off land routes to Berlin. 1984 immerses the reader in a world where a totalitarian government monitors people even in their private lives. Writing is illegal but main character Winston Smith keeps a diary and desires to beat the system. Everything about Winston’s life is miserable and that includes his job, the food he eats, and the dreary London cityscape he lives in. In his and all people’s daily lives there are hidden cameras and microphones everywhere, even at home TV screens spewing propaganda must never be turned off.
The signs “Big Brother is watching you” in the book have become synonymous in our culture for the dangers of a government that works to police our thoughts.
The Twitter Files show just how far our own United States government organizations were willing to go to control the public narrative on elections in the USA and SARS-CoV-2. Three examples are,
By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
You can read about these in this thread shared by David Zweig, author of Invisibles.
1. THREAD:
THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE
– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy – By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed – By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an M.D., an economist, and a professor of health policy at Stanford warned about the dangerous impact of lockdowns, especially on children, the working class, and the poor.
In 2020, he and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then a professor of medicine at Harvard, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford wrote an open letter arguing for “focused protection” for the most medically vulnerable and a return to normal life for the rest of society. Twitter put Bhattacharya’s account on the Trends Blacklist, which meant that no matter how many likes or views one of his tweets racked up, it could never “trend”; its visibility to users on the platform would be sharply curtailed. You can read more about that in the article, “Twitter’s Secret Blacklists.”
3. Fahrenheit 451
The sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451’s title refers to the temperature at which paper burns. The book explores the dangers of a government that tries to control its people through censorship. Reading is illegal and books are burned any time they are discovered.
The main character, Ray, collects books but is betrayed by his own wife. Written in 1953 when people were just starting to buy cathode-ray TV sets. The book features Ray’s wife Mildred, who watches TV on three screens the size of an entire wall. The programs displayed on the walls are shallow, absurd and pointless. Mildred refers to the characters in her favorite program as her “family” and the actors talk over each other the entire time. Eventually Mildred gets tired of Ray and turns him in to the authorities and he is forced to burn his books and his house. 451 ends on a hopeful note when Ray escapes the city before a nuclear war begins and joins a group of intellectuals and academics who live in secrecy and memorize books to preserve them.
Lee Fang released Twitter Files Part 8 and wrote about how Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign in an article in the Intercept. Disturbing revelations are surfacing, as Fang wrote, “This appears to align with a major report published in August by online security researchers affiliated with the Stanford Internet Observatory, which reported on thousands of accounts that they suspected to be part of a state-backed information operation, many of which used photorealistic human faces generated by artificial intelligence, a practice also known as “deep fakes.”
Twitter quietly partnered with the U.S. intelligence community, allowing the IC to select which state-sponsored accounts/advertsting to take down/ban. Incredible screenshot below showing Twitter had a secret policy handing power to FBI/CIA etc. over content decisions. https://t.co/6aXJ5KqLIt
The Twitter Files reveal how the government paid millions of dollars to censor information from the public. Michael Shellenberger shares, “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — “Bu alumni” — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” and adds a screenshot of an email.
Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files
29. As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — "Bu alumni" — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals. pic.twitter.com/prVhPGohOC
Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are all science fiction novels that serve to warn people of what can happen if we give up our freedoms and allow others to control what we read or see. Our perception of reality will be skewed and humanity as a whole will be at risk.
For this reason, even if Elon Musk has to “shoot himself in the feet,” it is good that he will keep releasing Twitter Files. The Twitter files are very political because they are important in exposing what the government has been doing behind the scenes at Twitter for years.
Read the Twitter Files (free) on the Twitter Files Archive by Johnna Crider here.
Photo of Austin Texas by Spencer Davis on Unsplash
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 5 2022. 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.
One-Time
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My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
Elon Musk (wearing a Dogecoin t-shirt) talks on Dec 26 episode of All-In Podcast. Image courtesy All-In Podcast.
Changes in Twitter are happening fast and it’s hard to keep track of them. That’s why I’m writing this blog, it is to try to capture the historical significance of Musk‘s purchase of Twitter. I may not go into every single little detail change and I certainly will not write about the daily drama. You already know about The Twitter Files and are most likely very happy they exist. I think Elon‘s recent talk on the all-in podcast had some important information (Davis Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and David A. Friedberg all asked Elon Musk questions). I’m going to share 12 main points with you in this article.
tweets show view counts
Twitter’s paid verified blue check
Twitter for businesses/organizations
Twitter ‘batting average’
why and how Twitter workforce was reduced
less hate speech, bots and trolls, a new incentive structure emerges
Elon’s business model inspires other tech firms
Twitter will not monetize hate speech: bots versus trolls
Elon Musk personally called Paul Graham to apologize for Twitter suspension
Twitter to unveil new features in January
Chamath asks Elon Musk to share his views on a 2023 recession
Elon Musk’s reason for the Twitter files
TWEETS SHOW VIEW COUNTS
Views are more important than likes for most people. This has been the case on Youtube for years. Now you will see view counts on your tweets. Though a tweet may get 20 “likes,” it could have thousands of views. Elon explains,
Elon: The view thing is huge, that’s why I pushed the views. Actually, it’s a lot harder than you think because of the sheer number of transactions per second. I think it sort of requires systemwide on the order of 3 million transactions a second to actually calculate the view. You know, calculate and display the view count FYI for Twitter global, so it’s like 3 million per second. It’s a lot.
Elon went on to describe what it was like to own Twitter for the first six weeks.
Elon: “Well, it’s been quite a roller coaster which, obviously you’ve witnessed and been on the roller coaster as well (speaking to Jason).
I mean, it’s exciting, but I think it sort of has its highs and lows to say the least but overall, it seems to be going in a good direction and we’ve got the expenses reasonably under control so it’s not like in the fast lane of bankruptcy anymore.
And we’re releasing features faster than Twitter‘s history at the same time as containing the costs and reducing the cost structure by a factor of three maybe four.
Elon: The verified, that’s huge! It’s a revenue stream as well as a means of identifying or like knowing that it’s a real person and not a bot or a troll situation.
TWITTER FOR BUSINESS / ORGANIZATIONS
Elon: “Having the organizational affiliation was an idea of David’s (Sacks).
That was great to have organizational affiliation so that you can know that somebody is an actual professor at Stanford or that this particular handle is actually Disney not someone simply putting “I work at Disney” in their bio.
So I think that’s going to be really helpful, it’s really just having detailed and nuanced verification so of all the things that you say you are, are these things validated by other people and organizations?”
I wrote about Twitter’s organizational verification of Twitter Blue for Business here.
TWITTER BATTING AVERAGE
Elon: I am a big believer in like you want to look at the net output. So it’s sort of like you know “what’s the batting average?” It’s like baseball.
The point is not that you hit the ball, but it’s like how many home runs you get and like what’s your actual slugging percentage? Its like you’ve got to swing for the fences you’re going to strike out a bit more but we’re going to swing for the fences here at Twitter.
And we’re going to do it quickly, so I think generally like my error rate, and sort of being the chief twit will be less over time but you know in the beginning, we’ll make obviously sort of a lot more mistakes because I’m new to the… like, ‘Hey I just got here man!’
So I mean if you look at the actual amount of improvement that’s happened at Twitter in terms of having costs that are not insane and actually shipping product that on balance is good I think that’s great. Like I think we’re actually executing well and getting things done. I think we’ll have fewer pure gaffes in the future.
WHY AND HOW TWITTER WORKFORCE WAS REDUCED
Chamath: How did you get to your intuition on what the efficient frontier of employees needed to be to make the product better?
Elon: Well…
David Sacks: I observed part of this, where you basically ask the question, “who here is critical, and who here is exceptional?”
Elon: Yes, really what the criteria are trying to apply and obviously you’re not gonna be perfect if you’re moving fast and there’s a lot of people you’re talking about here, is anyone who is exceptional with what they do where the role is critical and they have a positive effect on others and they are trusted meaning they put the company’s interests before their own, should stay. And you know also who is up for working hard. That was not Twitter’s prior culture.
Chamath: Were you surprised that the intersection of that circle and the people that left was basically 25%? Were you surprised it was that deep or did you think your intuition was like, ‘It’s probably somewhere in here?’
Elon: Well I think you could just stand back and say, without knowing how many employees Twitter has at all and say ‘how many people are really needed to run Twitter?’
Like let’s say you don’t know what the employee count number is at all. How many people are needed to keep the site operational? Like let’s say if -excluding product evolution- You basically have to keep the servers going and you have to have a customer support function to take down material that is in violation of the law. what’s the minimum number of people? It’s not like a giant number.
David Sacks: Twitter still has like 2000 people right?
Elon: Yeah we still have 2000 people it’s not that nothing and there’s actually on the order of almost 5000 contractors. Almost all the what’s called ‘trust and safety work,’ which is like the support functions for the site are done by contractors.
Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.
LESS HATE SPEECH, BOTS AND TROLLS, A NEW INCENTIVE STRUCTURE EMERGES
David Sacks: You’re doing a lot more to take down hate speech than the company previously was doing.
Elon: Yeah, absolutely, hate speech Impressions are down by a third and will get even lower.
David Friedberg: Maybe you could speak a little bit to what we discovered in those early weeks, which was the incentive. Previously it was to create as many accounts as possible and there were a lot of quick fixes to lowering all these, you know, what people might call ‘bot accounts.” In some cases it was people opening many millions of accounts, but we discovered this very early how easy it was for the tech team to lower the bot count and all the fake accounts.
Elon: Well, we still have a fair number of bots in the system. The incentive structure, the way Twitter was set up previously was this relentless focus on what they call mDau which is monetizable daily active users, although I would say the monetizable part is dubious.
But at least the things that appeared to be monetized or could be passed off as monetizable daily active users. So this created an incentive to turn a blind eye to fake accounts.
So if the incentive structure is like ‘Maximize the appearance of monetizable daily active users,’ then it’s a strong incentive to pretend that a bot is real, and that’s what happened.
So we’re taking a lot of steps to reduce the bots and troll situation, so many! And I think you’re seeing that in the usage. It’s now relatively rare to have your replies filled with crypto scams.
David Friedberg explained that there are many companies in Silicon Valley that want to copy Elon Musk’s method of fast iteration. David said he talks to a lot of tech companies who have CEOs and investors and boards, and they’re starting to say ‘Look at what Elon did at Twitter, how can we do something as aggressive as swift as deep?’ David asked Elon if he thinks much about his business model.
Elon: I mean, to be frank, I’m not thinking about it that much, I’m just thinking about like how do we get Twitter to be in a financially healthy place and fix the engine of engineering so we can have a rapid evolution of new products. and so I guess I’m in some ways in sort of a fortunate position where I don’t have to answer, because it’s not public, and we don’t have a board really.
So I can take actions that are drastic and obviously if I make a bunch of mistakes then Twitter won’t succeed and that will be pretty embarrassing and sad.
But as long as the batting average is good, and the wins significantly outweigh the mistakes, then it will be a great future and I think I’m very optimistic about where things are headed.
TWITTER WILL NOT MONETIZE HATE SPEECH AND BOTS VS. TROLLS
Jason Calacanis asked Elon about freedom of speech and how he feels about it post Twitter acquisition.
Elon: Well, the general principle is that we should hew close to the law in any given country, so the laws vary quite a lot by country and so I think we should be doing free-speech that’s close to the law and that’s the general principle.
I think there are other things where it’s like for example, if you’re an advertiser you don’t want your Ad -like let’s say- it’s a Family Movie next to some NSFW content, even if that continent is text. There’s more of an allowance for what somebody might call hate speech on the system, but it’s not going to be promoted. Like, we’re not going to be recommending hate speech, haha, just at the risk of stating the obvious. (pause)
And we are not going to monetize hate speech or negative speech. Nor would advertisers want us to. I think it’s going to be a rare product that wants to be near seriously negative stuff.
Elon explains the difference between bots and trolls in relation to Jason’s question about freedom of speech versus freedom of reach.
Jason: I was going to say you referred to it as freedom of speech, but not reach because this is a very nuanced discussion. Should this stuff be able to hit the trends?
Elon: It’s certainly possible that some things that will be regarded as hate speech will hit trends, but I think it’s going to be relatively unusual especially as we are doing a better job of controlling the bots and trolls situation. and I do want to emphasize there’s a difference between the bots and the trolls.
Bots are like fully automated accounts, but a troll farm would be where like you’ve got like 100 people in a warehouse somewhere, each with 100 phones so they’re actually humans and they’re going to pass a capture test and they can reply because actually they’re humans. But it’s 10,000 accounts that are obviously not operating as real people.
So, stuff like that can cause things to trend negatively. That’s why I’m a big proponent of having a low-cost verification capability.
Elon continued, explaining how he applied his way of thinking to Twitter. You might know this famous quote:
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing you are not innovating.” -Elon Musk
Elon: This is definitely a work in progress. One of the first things I said, after the acquisition closed was, we’re going to make a bunch of mistakes but then will try to recover from them quickly. And that’s what we’ve done. I think we’ve generally succeeded in recovering from them quickly and it’s been going pretty well.
ELON MUSK PERSONALLY CALLED PAUL GRAHAM TO APOLOGIZE FOR TWITTER SUSPENSION
David Friedberg asked if the Paul Graham and journalist suspensions were mistakes. “Have you talked publicly about how that all got resolved at the end?”
Elon: Yes, the Paul Graham suspension was definitely a mistake. I actually called Paul Graham to apologize personally for that one.
On the journalist front, I think the journalist suspensions were not a mistake. For some reason, a bunch of journalists thought they were better than everyone else and that if they engaged in doxxing and breaking the rules in various ways that they’re not subject to suspension even though your average citizen is. I think that’s just messed up.
The same rules should apply to people that call themselves journalists as to anyone else on the system. They shouldn’t be sort of, above the rules. for some reason they thought they should be. so that doesn’t make sense, I don’t think that’s right.
David Friedberg also asked Elon to elaborate on shadow banning and transparency. Jason explained that if there’s going to be a system of shadow banning that the rules should be clear to everybody.
Elon: Yeah, absolutely, so that’s something I’m committed to and we will probably be able to roll that out in January.
By the way, we are not going to be rolling out a ton of new features over Christmas and New Year’s and stuff so…. the next sort of feature set will probably roll out mid to late January.
And hopefully, in that we can include information about why an account gets suspended or what is called in Twitter visibility filtering ha ha a.k.a. shadow banning. There’s a lot of things that just happen accidentally. What are the rules in the system that are meant to detect that someone is a bot or a troll and then an account is sort of innocently caught up in that.
So ha ha there’s some accounts that were just suspended yesterday because — temporary suspended, they got like 12 hours suspensions because — someone in trust and safety thought they had posted a nude photo of Hunter Biden or something but they haven’t actually done that (laughter) I don’t know, it was just basically a mistake. There was some account that got a 12-hour suspension yesterday in error and they weren’t sure why it happened. It was essentially a mistake with Twitter Customer support that was corrected.
Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.
CHAMATH ASKS ELON MUSK TO SHARE HIS VIEWS ON A 2023 RECESSION
Elon: Well I think it does seem like we’re headed into a recession here in 2023.
The magnitude of that recession is debatable, but I think it’s at least a light to moderate recession potentially on the order of 2009.
So I think it’s wise to prepare for the worst — hope for the best, prepare for the worst — don’t get too adventurous, watch out for margin debt. Like I would really advise people to not have margin debt in a volatile stock market and from a cash standpoint, keep powder dry.
You can get some pretty extreme things happening in a down market. Like Brett Johnson, who is the CFO at SpaceX, was at Broadcom in 2000 and that’s a good company making good products. And he said from peak to trough, I think in less than 12 months Broadcom went down 97%.
So like even if you had a small margin loan there you got crushed. It subsequently recovered to much higher levels but you know if there’s like mass panic in the stock market then you’ve got to be really careful about margin debt.
But this is just, as we know, the economy is cyclic and its somewhat overdue for a recession. And my best guess is that we have sort of stormy times for a year to a year and a half and then things start to … Dawn breaks roughly in Q2 2024. That’s like my best guess.
Booms don’t last forever but neither do recessions.
ELON MUSK’S REASON FOR THE TWITTER FILES
Elon: I think it’s important to, like if you know if we’re going to be trusted in the future to kind of clear the decks for stuff that’s happened in the past so to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.(laughter from all) Haha, so … is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true?
So far, they all turned out to be true. And if not more true than people thought.
Chamath asked Elon what he thought was the most shocking thing about the Twitter files so far.
Elon: The FBI stuff was pretty intense!
Elon mentioned to the group that the FBI was flagging content to take down that had nothing to do with terrorism. He said, “they literally flagged satire.”
Elon: Maybe they didn’t get the joke, I don’t know, haha!
It’s a big deal that Twitter shows view counts, this helps people to know that they are seen. It’s more significant than likes. If you pay 8/$11, you can have a verified blue check eventually. I think it’s a great idea for people who can afford it. David Sacks came up with a wonderful idea that was implemented called Twitter for Business/Organizations. It helps to validate people’s claims that they represent an organization.
As far as Twitter‘s batting average, Elon Musk explains how in baseball you look at the big picture and not the individual strikeouts, etc. Basically, Twitter has an excellent batting average.
Elon admits that mistakes are made and explains that on deciding the Twitter workforce, it’s important to look at what’s actually needed. Not ‘how many people you should eliminate.’
Twitter’s incentive structure is changing and will not be based on hate speech magnified by bots and trolls.
I was surprised to hear that other tech firms in Silicon Valley are inspired by Elon Musk’s business model of making swift and drastic changes. The fact is, he is greatly respected and admired, even though the mainstream media would have you believe otherwise.
Again, Elon emphasizes that Twitter will not monetize hate speech. When you watch the video, he has an earnest demeanor when he says this, even pausing between his words. Twitter will not monetize hate speech. This is great news.
As far as Twitter’s suspensions of journalists and of Paul Graham, the Paul Graham suspension was an accident and Elon announced that he personally called Paul to apologize. However, the journalists were not accidentally suspended because they doxxed his family’s private location. This put his family’s life at risk. This is something normal people could not do, and so journalists should be held to the same level of accountability as regular people.
Elon mentioned that new features will be unveiled in January. We’re all looking forward to that. Elon believes we are heading towards a recession and he shares his information in the podcast and you can read about that above if you’re interested. Basically, Elon reminds us that the dawn will break after the stormy times. And he thinks that time will happen roughly in Q2 2024, that’s his best guess.
Lastly, Elon chuckles over the FBI flagging parody accounts in the Twitter files. I agree it is pretty hilarious that a parody account would actually be the reason for the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The interview ended with Elon giving up his seat to Michael Schellenberger, the writer who released the Twitter files on the FBI.
Fun Sidestory: I had the opportunity to get to know some of the Dogecoin community including Gary Lachance. I met Gary in Austin and I was excited to find out there were T-shirts with the Doge drone show from Cyber Rodeo and Texas Rodeo Doge shirts. Later when I was invited to meet Elon Musk at Giga Texas, I asked Gary if he had any extra shirts. Eventually, I met a friend of Gary’s in Austin who passed me a box of shirts and a ceramic tile. Elon received the Rodeo Doge and Drone Doge t-shirts and was appreciative and grateful for them. It’s cool to see Elon wearing the Rodeo Doge t-shirt.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 29, 2022. 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.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
Expect to see a lot more squares in the Twitter digital town square in 2023. This is the first step by Twitter to offer a new product to organizations and companies called Twitter Blue for Business. Many large businesses are already showing a square profile badge, and they may also choose to subscribe to Twitter Blue for Business in 2023 when it is available. Check out these 5 updates.
UPDATE 12/28/22: Elon Musk commented on Twitter Blue for Business. He called it organizational affiliation during a talk on the All-In Podcast with Jason Calacanis and business partner David Sacks. You can watch that part of the talk here. Elon said,
“Having the organizational affiliation was an idea of David’s. That was great to have organizational affiliation so that you can know that somebody is an actual professor at Stanford or that this particular handle is actually Disney not someone simply putting 'I work at Disney' in their bio. So I think that’s going to be really helpful, it’s really just having detailed and nuanced verification so of all the things that you say you are, are these things validated by other people and organizations?” - Elon Musk
#1 Who can get a big square?
Squares are automatically replacing round badging for large businesses. When Slim Jim’s Twitter operator first saw the square badging, he got 75.6 K likes on a tweet saying “why tf am i a square now?”
#2 What are the small squares for?
Twitter support has a small blue badge that indicates it is affiliated with Twitter. This is part of the pilot program that Craft Ventures, Pirate Wires, Tesla, Inc. and more are also participating in.
In 2023, small squares will also go to affiliates of businesses that choose to purchase a new product, called Twitter Blue for Business. Twitter explains,
“Businesses can affiliate their leadership, brands, support handles, employees or teams. Journalists, sports team players or movie characters can all be affiliated. You name it, we got it. Each affiliate will be verified and officially linked to their parent handle based on a list provided by the parent business.” – Twitter
Twitter for business is an opportunity for companies to create networks across the globe within their own organizations. Piloting this is Craft Ventures, Pirate Wires and Tesla, Inc.
#3 When will it be available?
Twitter says that they are piloting Blue for Business, and will roll this out to more companies who wish to subscribe in 2023.
#4 Where can you get updates on it?
The best way to get updates would be to follow Twitter Blue for Business at @TwitterBusiness and set an alert.
#5 Why is Twitter doing this?
I believe that Twitter is doing this to give businesses power. I believe the exchange of ideas is valuable and knowledge sharing is critical. Twitter Blue for Business might also serve as a recruiting tool for companies to find the best talent for their success.
Large businesses, such as Target, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, IKEA, and thousands more already have a gold check and the square badging.
Square badges look good on Target, McDonald’s, Home Depot and Coca-Cola
Twitter plans to “layer more value into the offering to help businesses and their affiliates get the most from Twitter.”
CONCLUSION
Twitter Blue for Business has been unveiled. Elon Musk has a vision for this new development in organizational affiliation. His vision is designed to help further a better experience for all on Twitter. It is fitting that he chose SQUARE badging as he purchased Twitter to create a digital Town Square for all. Most if not all town squares are surrounded with businesses such as stores, banks, restaurants, and more.
Town Square in Poland. Photo courtesy Malyushev on Unsplash.
Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 21, 2022. 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.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a donation to support!
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