Category: Twitter

Elon Musk talks with Michael Grimes in San Francisco.

Elon Musk talks about Twitter at Morgan Stanley TMT Conference 2023

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

Twitter was the big topic at Morgan Stanley’s TMT Conference this last week and Elon Musk talked for about 45 minutes. This article captures his insanely inspiring and at times humorous talk. My favorite part of his talk was about Twitter advertising and how he plans to make it a resounding success! Don’t miss this amazing talk!

Highlights:

  • Mission of Twitter 
  • News happens in real-time on Twitter
  • Should Twitter have a public relations department?
  • GOOD INFO! Why advertising on Twitter has incredible potential 
  • Community Notes: combatting misinformation across a broad spectrum and the rigorous pursuit of truth
  • Proactively reducing child exploitation on Twitter 
  • Advertisers on Twitter enjoy brand safety
  • A healthy national dialogue on Twitter 
  • Freedom of speech: hearing what you don’t want to hear
  • Twitter won’t always be a fractal rube goldberg machine
  • Twitter’s cash flow
  • MUST READ! The incredible value of advertising on Twitter and how Elon Musk will make sure it happens
  • The everything app is going to be x.com
Image Courtesy Twitter, Inc.

MISSION OF TWITTER IN THE WORDS OF ELON MUSK

Morgan Stanley: How would you describe the mission of Twitter 2.0 under your ownership?

Elon Musk: The goal is to have Twitter be the best source of truth, the most timely and accurate source of truth, even if the truth is something we don’t want to hear or unpleasant or whatever but have it be timely and accurate and really where you can understand what’s going on.

And not just, ‘is something true or not?’ but what is the narrative?

The thing that I think most people probably don’t appreciate is that the media controls the narrative. So there are many things that could be talked about in the world but only a few things can fit on the front page. 

But Twitter doesn’t have a limitation like that, so the public can control the narrative and the public can inform themselves as to what the narrative should be.  That’s really a big deal. It’s a forum for citizen journalism or a forum for the public to get together and communicate in a way that was never possible before, so you can really know what’s going on.

I think that it’s really going to be essential for a functioning democracy.  What is the bedrock of a functioning democracy? It has to be free speech and a level playing field.

That’s why it’s the First Amendment. It was the first thing they did, it was like, ‘we’ve got to make sure freedom of speech’ and why did they do that? It’s because where they came from there wasn’t freedom of speech, and once you lose freedom of speech you don’t get it back.

That’s why we must protect it at all costs.

MS: (paraphrased) Where are you on the core principles of Twitter: Authentic, informative, entertaining, accurate, brand safe and democratic?

Elon Musk: I think some of these are a little at odds, but brand safe I think really means like ‘where advertising is displayed’ or the advertiser gets to choose what material is near that advertising.

If its some sort of… like a train accident or a war scene, then probably a family-friendly brand is not going to want to advertise right next to that. 

Or it can’t be like, ‘here’s a bleak war scene, would you like to buy a hamburger?’ it would be like, awkward, you know?  So that’s understandable you want to put advertising next to content where it makes sense.  But the content in general needs to be authentic and informative even if it is controversial or jarring. I think people need to be able to choose, to some degree, what content they want to see. 

Of course on Twitter you can. But really we want it to be the fundamental place you go to, to learn what’s going on and get the real story.  The truth, the whole truth and it’s going to be more than, hahaha, I’d like to say nothing but the truth but that’s hard, (laughter) there’s going to be a lot of BS there too. There are going to be lies, for sure, but you want to have the truth and you want to bubble up the truth and be able to sort of sort out… you really want truth with the least amount of error.

TWITTER IS WHERE THE NEWS HAPPENS

MS: How can the media catch up? If they’re on Twitter they can be seeing these tweets and posting them.  If they’re not on Twitter is there no way to catch up?  Like how does the traditional media and citizen journalism and 50,000 tweets on an important subject, how do those intersect and how does the media catch up.

Elon Musk: Well, I’m sure many of you use Twitter. 

Everything on Twitter is happening in real-time.

So if you contrast that to what’s happening in a newspaper, they have to learn the information, propose an article to their editor, get it approved, write the article, get it edited, figure out which day it’s going to get published on, and so the thing that happened is being reported on 3-4 days, sometimes a week late. And if it happens on a weekend then it’s at least 3 days. 

You know ChatGPT was huge news for several days on Twitter before there were any news articles about it in major publications.

So when thinking about investing in things, you want to have information that is as timely and accurate as possible, there’s no better source than Twitter for that.

SHOULD TWITTER HAVE A PR DEPT?

MS: Paul Graham has said how important accuracy is on Twitter he said you should be ‘default skeptical’ of any news story about Twitter and assume its default wrong because not only some journalists have an agenda but the source has an agenda and it’s so easy to go through the chain of inaccuracy or outright falsehood. Is he right about this and how can accuracy about Twitter and about you be conducted by the traditional media if at all? Would a PR department help, which you famously don’t have?

Elon Musk: No, PR departments… no the right name for PR is propaganda.  Maybe we should have a VP of propaganda, I think that’s more honest, and also a VP of witchcraft. (laughter) Those would be two great ones.

If you pick up any given newspaper and read the whole thing and say, ‘how many of those stories are positive about anything at all?’ Almost none.

So if something is newsworthy it is going to have a negative slant, whether it is positive or not.  There’s like something in journalism that, they’ve been trained to basically never write a positive story about anything. Once and a while you see a puff piece but it’s rare. 

So anything that’s newsworthy will get written about, anything that’s written about will go through a negativity lense and so you therefore have a bizarrely negative view of the world if you draw your information from newspapers. This is simply a fact.

THE SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD USE TWITTER, POTENTIAL FOR AD REVENUE IS HUGE

Elon Musk: So on Twitter, you can get a much more balanced positive-negative situation, it doesn’t have that bias quite as much.  There’s probably still a little bit of negativity bias but much less so.  I’m not sure what the legacy media does, I mean at this point, really.

Twitter is, by the way, the #1 news app in the world.  So in terms of what people download for news, it’s #1.  There are 500M active users. 250M daily users of which I’d say there are probably 180M significant daily users, where it’s a meaningful amount of time.

The average amount of time people spend on Twitter of that 250M is about 1/2 an hour or so.  The thing I think that is most interesting is about 120M to 130M hours of human attention per day on Twitter, every single day on average. I think it comes to an interesting point which is, it’s startling how poorly monetized that is because you have to say, how valuable is that attention? 130M hours of human attention per day, of people that read. 

So these are generally the smartest people in the world, the most influential people in the world, and you have 130M hours of their time per day, that’s a lot! Currently, Twitter makes about 5 or 6 cents per hour of that time.  I think this is poorly monetized (laughter).

MS: Paul Graham’s 1/2 hour of attention is worth more than that, haha!

Elon Musk: Like, if I’m spending 2 hours a day on Twitter, whatever ads are coming through are getting my, or yours or everyone in the room’s attention, your time is incredibly valuable. 

The thing is, we need to actually serve ads that are relevant and useful and I think as we do that we can probably at least get it like 15 cents an hour or 20 cents an hour, a quarter?  I think the actual potential here for Twitter revenue is gigantic. 

And it’s going to be a win-win situation which is if you are served advertising that you find timely and relevant with products and services that are useful to you, that’s good for you and good for the advertiser. Advertising in the limit of relevance is content.

COMMUNITY NOTES: COMBATTING MISINFORMATION ACROSS A BROAD SPECTRUM

Morgan Stanley shared how Community Notes, a fact-checking by the power of the people on Twitter can be used to combat misinformation in 6 examples:

  • Correcting government misstatements
  • Correcting candidate misstatements
  • Adding context
  • Debunking conspiracy theories 
  • Correcting misstatements about companies

COMMUNITY NOTES AND THE RIGOROUS PURSUIT OF TRUTH

Morgan Stanley asked how Community Notes can be used without being hijacked by either side of an issue or political spectrum. 

Elon Musk: There’s a White Paper on Community Notes that I recommend reading, in fact, I’ll tweet it out so that people can have easy access to it because it’s really quite a clever idea.  Think of it like page rank for pages as applied to people, which is that as people build credibility in how they review notes, they build up enough credibility to actually write notes.

Those notes are then rated by others, and depending upon the credibility of the people rating your notes, your credibility score gets affected. In order to be a notes contributor, you have to be a verified person. And it takes a while to get there; when you just start out, you will start off with no credibility score.

We actively look at any attempts to game the system and shut them down. If they’re determined to be not real people or if they seem to be brigading because there are deliberate attempts to manipulate Community Notes. We also make the Community Notes source code open and available, so you can basically see everything.

You can see exactly how Community Notes is calculating things, and what changes are made to Community Notes and we’ll keep iterating and the goal is to have truth with the least amount of error.

There’s always like, ‘What is truth?’ Does someone really aspire to the truth?  If they really aspire to the truth they must acknowledge that there is some probability that what they think is untrue.

If somebody thinks that what they say is true with 100% probability, there’s a 100% probability they are lying. Truth must acknowledge error, where you aim to minimize the error over time, that’s what Community Notes is. I think also, once someone gets Community Noted, they think twice about being dissected in the future.  You start getting noted a few times, and you think ‘Uh, oh!’

The important thing is that anyone can be noted, including me, and in fact, I wanted to make a note of being noted. The point is that if I can be noted, anyone can be noted, including advertisers. We’ve had a few cases where the advertising wasn’t accurate and it got noted. 

This, I think will be very helpful in truth in advertising. The goal is rigorous pursuit of the truth, aspirationally the whole truth, and the least amount of untruth.

TWITTER IS DOWN > 50% LESS HATE SPEECH THAN PRE-ACQUISITION

PROACTIVELY REDUCING CSE ON TWITTER

Elon Musk: Yeah, I’ve repeatedly said to the trust and safety team at Twitter that the #1 priority, which will always be the #1 priority no matter what, is ensuring that children are safe on Twitter, that there’s no child exploitation.  So that is #1 priority always and forever. 

The #1 priority, which will always be the #1 priority no matter what,
is ensuring that children are safe on Twitter,
that there’s no child exploitation. 
So that is #1 priority always and forever.  Elon Musk

Elon Musk: What I’ve been told is that we’ve done more to eliminate [CSE material] on Twitter in the last four months than what has been done in the last ten years. It will continue to be our number one priority. A 100-fold reduction in CSE search patterns is pretty gigantic to say the least.  It’s the absolute number one priority.

HOW ELON MUSK WILL MAKE ADVERTISING ON TWITTER A SUCCESS

Elon Musk: With respect to brand safety, it really depends a lot on the brand.

By the way, Disney is a major advertiser on Twitter worldwide.  Apple is one of our biggest advertisers. But Disney of course does not want to have one of their ads next to things that aren’t appropriate for a family audience. 

But there are other products that are kind of more R-rated if you will, so they’re more comfortable with advertising being in the equivalent of like a R-rated movie or something like that.  So brand safety depends on what brand you’re talking about.  Is it a family brand or a less family brand? 

Advertisers can actually adjust what content they are comfortable having their advertising appear next to.  The same is true on TV.  The advertising that you’ll see at 7 pm is different than the advertising that you’ll see at midnight. We have the same functionality on Twitter, so it’s truly up to the advertiser where they want to put their content. 

But I think by far the most important thing is if the advertising is effective.  That it is relevant and that it moves the needle for a company.  Advertising relevance is the most gigantic thing.  This is going to sound totally bizarre but Twitter did not consider relevance in advertising until 3 months ago.  In fact if you use Twitter for a long time, you should ask ‘how many products have you bought off Twitter?’ Probably zero! (laughter) Judging by the laughter, probably zero.  And your time is incredibly valuable. 

MS: Flamethrower, no one bought a flamethrower?

Elon Musk: Haha, its possible that they might have bought things from content-based tweets because the content that’s recommended is reasonably relevant but the advertising has not been. 

So as we shift towards advertising being relevant and timely, as I said, advertising that is relevant and timely is content.  The time of 130M person-hours of the smartest people on earth is insanely valuable. Historically, with advertising being mostly irrelevant, we’ve been wasting peoples’ time and that’s not good. Going forward, Twitter will have very relevant and useful advertising.

There will be a massive increase in revenue because it is now useful. So I’m very optimistic about the future.  It’s been a very difficult 4 months, but I’m optimistic about the future. 

TWITTER AS A DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM FOR ALL

Elon Musk: I think the objective reality for anyone looking at Twitter for a long time was that Twitter had a massive thumb on the scale on the left side. Twitter would ban and suspend accounts on the right 10 times more than on the left.

This is naturally what you would expect, frankly, because we are in San Francisco, which is deep deep blue. So, Twitter was controlled by the far left.

So the natural thing that would happen then was the suppression of moderates, not just suppression of the right but even suppression of moderate voices.

But that’s not conducive to a healthy national dialogue. In order to have a healthy national dialogue, you have to represent the whole country, and you have to represent everyone in other countries too. That’s the only way to have a Town Square.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS WHEN YOU HEAR WHAT YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR

Elon Musk: Yeah, there were disproportionately more accounts unsuspended and un-shadowbanned on the right because Twitter had a huge thumb on the scale in favor of the left. 

But if you say, ‘Have we been suspending accounts on the left?  Have we been shadowbanning accounts on the left? No, no we haven’t.’ No, because exactly what I said we were doing which is to make it an even playing field and you know something is Freedom of Speech when you’re hearing speech from someone you don’t like and you don’t like what they’re saying.  Otherwise its not free speech.

And if you don’t have that ability, then sooner or later that suppression of speech is going to be turned on you. It is a good sign if you’re seeing people you don’t like say things you don’t like. 

That is a good sign, not a bad sign… provided you can say your piece too! I think this is fundamental. The reason I did the Twitter acquisition was not because I thought this would be some lucrative goldmine, and in fact, it has been arduous and difficult with being dumped on [by mainstream media] every day.

That’s not the most fun thing in the world. But if we do not have a strong foundation of free speech, I fear for the future of our civilization. We must have this. That’s why I did it.

“if we do not have a strong foundation of free speech,
I fear for the future of our civilization.
We must have this.
That’s why I did it.” Elon Musk

FIXING THE FRACTAL RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE

Elon Musk: The codebase is like a Rube Goldberg Machine and when you zoom in on one part of the Rube Goldberg Machine there’s another Rube Goldberg Machine and then there’s another one!

That’s what I mean by the fractal.  As you zoom in there’s another fractal and another fractal and a fractal Rube Goldberg Machine. It’s quite difficult to keep this thing running and then also difficult to advance the product because it is really overly complex. We’ll make what appears to be a small change somewhere that then causes massive disruption. For example, yesterday we made what we thought was a small change, we want to be in full disclosure including gruesome details. 

There was what was supposed to be a small change to 1% of the Twitter user base ended up being a catastrophic event to 100% of the Twitter user base. We don’t have enough time to go into the details but there was a Boolean flag in the Twitter front end that should not have been there. 

I’ll give you an example.  At one point there was a problem with Twitter Spaces where suspended users were able to join conversations even though they were suspended and so we temporarily turned off access to Twitter Spaces which then made anyone who is using the Twitter Android App unable to like a tweet.

Now how those things are connected is not clear, haha. So if you had an iOS app you could like tweets, if you’re on the Web app you could like tweets but not if you had an Android app because of Spaces.  So there’s a lot of work behind the scenes and simplifying the code base, getting rid of extraneous features and enabling Twitter to evolve more rapidly in the future but it requires a lot of cleanup. 

MS: You’ve grown users despite this lean engineering team and you cut out a data center. 

Elon Musk: Yeah, I think on balance we’re doing okay.  Just to give you a sense of where things were at the close of acquisition on October 29th, Twitter was tracking to a negative 3 Billion dollar a year burn rate and had 1 Billion in the bank. That’s a pretty dire situation.

If 2023 had been a normal year, Twitter would have done something on the order of 4.5 Billion in revenue and 4.5 Billion in cost, roughly break even, but when you add 1.5 Billion of debt servicing to that and a massive decline in advertising, some of it cyclic, some of it political, but call it at roughly a 50% decline in revenue, you’ve got over 3 Billion dollars negative. 

Twitter has some revenue that’s not advertising-based, data subscriptions and what-not, but in the absence of action, Twitter would have had 6 Billion in costs and 3 Billion in revenue so minus 3 Billion and there was 1 Billion in the bank, so it would have gone bankrupt in 4 months. 

Immediate and drastic action had to be taken, which was.  We actually have now cut the non-interest burn to roughly 1.5 Billion.  So we’ve got 1.5 Billion of debt servicing and 1.5 Billion of expenditures.  We went from 3 data centers to 2, and reduced our cloud expenditures significantly, while at the same time having the fastest product evolution in Twitter’s history.  So overall, not bad.

There have been a few bumps along the road obviously but this is to be expected. And now I think we have the opportunity to grow it into something quite spectacular.  We had the highest total user minutes in Twitter history.  The real number to care about is actually not the MDAU (Monetized daily active user) but its user time.  How many total user hours per day do you have? That’s the real figure of merit because one could for example go to 300 Million daily active users but if they spent less time on the system cumulatively that would actually be a downgrade.  How much human attention are you worth?

That’s why I think the really profound thing is what Twitter has is roughly 130 Million hours of the smartest most influential people on earth, every single day.  There’s nothing else that has that.  I mean there are social networks that have more users but they do not have the smart, influential people, they don’t have you!

MS: After doing the math, Twitter is EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) profitable today and then you’re looking for break even after debt services.  when do you get to cash flow break even?

Elon Musk:  Well its EBITDA profitable but the “D” is quite big! (laughter)

MS: When do you get to cash flow break even after that “D”?

Elon Musk: This is where we need to focus on the “E” part. (laughter) Yeah, I hope we pay taxes. So like I said, we’re getting to the point where we’re close to having the total expenditures for the company excluding debt roughly equal to the debt. I think we’ll be there in Q2.

I defintely don’t want to count chickens before they’re hatched or jinx it or anything but I think we’ve got a shot at being cash flow positive next quarter.

THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF ADVERTISING ON TWITTER AND HOW ELON MUSK WILL MAKE SURE IT HAPPENS

MS: Twitter has great advertiser value with 147 Billion global impressions of the World Cup 2022 conversation. 

Elon Musk:  What I say to advertisers and brands is ‘use Twitter yourself and believe what you see on Twitter, not what you read in the newspapers.’ Because what you see on Twitter is the real thing, and what you read in newspapers is not.

And I’d like to thank Mark Read and WPP for their support and publicists and others that have stuck with us like Disney and Apple.

MS: When do you introduce performance-based advertising and scale it?

Elon Musk: Performance-based advertising is really just advertising that is relevant, in fact we should realistically have zero nonperformance-based advertising. 

We want advertising that matters, people’s attention is precious. We should not serve them ads that are annoying or irrelevant or strident or ugly. 

It was interesting you should mention White Lotus, I was talking today with David Zaslav, it was great, and he was like, ‘Why can’t we put a White Lotus trailer every time someone mentions White Lotus on Twitter?’ I’m like, ‘Absolutely!’

So one of the super-obvious but profound things that we’re doing is enabling keyword advertising so that can the keywords, like ‘White Lotus’ and if somebody mentions White Lotus, you put the White Lotus trailer there.  I mean, that sounds very obvious. 

We don’t need advanced AI for this one (laughter).  It’s sort of just google Adwords that apply to tweets and the home timeline and replies and everywhere else because you often have sort of long, deep conversations with people going on talking about movies, TV, products and whatnot and that’s the perfect opportunity for advertisers to provide their message. 

You know, if I think about something, for example, like Starlink, which does advertise in various media you want to advertise to users in a region that are not already saturated.  So Starlink tends to be saturated in urban areas but it is not saturated in rural areas.  So what Starlink would like to do is say, ‘Please show the ad to rural users with a slow connection. And the simple message is, ‘Do you want faster internet for less money? Click. Probably you do.  Twitter needs to be able to do a simple thing like that.  And it will.  It is already able to do that, we just haven’t fully rolled it out.  So I think we’re around 20%-ish but by the end of this year, almost all advertising should be reasonably relevant.

I think there’s also an opportunity here to really improve the relevance of advertising using AI based on the tweets, views, and likes. 

You can actually populate a parameter space and then you can take an ad, and even if you say nothing about that ad, after its dropped in the Twitter system and it has 10,000 views, you populate the parameter space of the ad and then you correlate the user parameter space and the ad parameter space and then you don’t need to do any demographic targeting because you could be like, say its a gardening ad or you could be 20, 30, 40, 70 years old, any sex, whatever, it doesn’t matter. 

What matters is you like gardening and that’s the ad that should be shown. I think we can get away from the ad targeting by age range and sex in favor or targeting by interest.  A lot of this demographic targeting was done coming from a TV or newspaper era where you don’t have interaction with the user, you just have to kind of guess because it’s a one-way street in TV.  But on Twitter it’s not a one-way street, there’s continuous interaction.  I think we can have a profoundly more useful advertising experience.

THE EVERYTHING APP: X.COM

MS: Tell us about your vision for X, the everything app.

Elon Musk:  I think it’s possible to create a very powerful finance experience basically. Paypal is kind of like a halfway version of what I think could be done in payments and finance. You want to be able to send money easily from one account on X / Twitter to another account effortlessly with one click.  You want to be able to earn interest on the money, you want to be able to have debt so your interest can grow negative.  Basically, I think it’s possible to become the biggest financial institution in the world just by providing people with convenience and payment options.  We don’t have time to go into detail here except if we just make the app more and more useful, people will use it more and it will be great.  I mean, you’ll see!

MS: The Tesla team is nice and built out, the Twitter executive team is perhaps a bit leaner.  Maybe there’s a meme that’s accurate.

Elon Musk:  He does have a black turtleneck, haha! Do you need anything more?  I don’t think so. (see header image of this article for picture of Elon’s pet dog as the CEO of Twitter)

MS: So when does that Twitter management team have that bench like you showcased at the Gigafactory?

Elon Musk: Well I think it takes a lot of time to build a strong management team.  We built the Tesla management team over 20 years.  I think Twitter is an easier problem than Tesla by a long shot. But it will take some time to build the team, probably a few years. 

X / Twitter HQ enjoys a lovely afternoon as a San Francisco Cable car passes by. Image Courtesy Roxanne Productions, Inc.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – March 10, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support X / Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.

Credit to cb_doge for the creation of the header image.

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Brazil is blessed with Twitter Community Notes

This Week’s Twitter Updates: Violent Speech Policy, Community Notes in Brazil & Future Plans

Gail AlfarLeave a comment
Courtesy Raphael Nogueira on Unsplash

Welcome back to What’s Up Twitter!  This past week’s Twitter updates exemplify how much care and concern the company has for people all over the world under the new direction of Elon Musk. Highlights from this week include:

  • Twitter officially launches their violent speech policy
  • Community Notes expands to Brazil and other improvements
  • Future plans: video, suppressed tweets, feedback for BasedAi

On March 1, Elon Musk explained (in a tweet), 

“The ability of Twitter advertising to reach the most influential people in the world is often not fully appreciated.

While a few other social networks are technically bigger, Twitter is where the writers & leaders spend their time” – Elon Musk

I think one reason writers & leaders spend their time on Twitter is that no other social network gives the ability for people to reach out to others so easily.  The person you want to communicate with can choose to read your input.  The opportunity is there and it is unlike anything else.

TWITTER COMMUNITY NOTES FOR BRAZIL

Community Notes expands to Brazil. Image courtesy Twitter, Inc.

As of March 2, Briazilians can apply to contribute to Community Notes. Twitter announced,

“Hello Brazil! Starting today, we will accept contributors from Brazil to Notas da Comunidade. Want to help? Subscribe now! Vacancies will be opened gradually so we can keep an eye on the quality of the experience. We look forward to learning from you!

Help keep people on Twitter in the loop.

Community Notes is now available in your country. Participate to add useful context to potentially misleading Tweets.  Subscribe to Community Notes.” – Twitter

I am thrilled to see Twitter open up Notas da Comunidade for Brazil! This was specifically mentioned by Elon Musk at the World Government Summit on February 15. The purpose of Community Notes was explained by Elon Musk,

“I think there’s something that we’re putting a lot of efforts into called Community Notes. It’s currently just in English, but we will be expanding it to all languages. 

That is I think quite a good way to assess the truth of things where it’s the community itself basically the people of Earth who are basically, not exactly voting but competing to provide the most accurate information. 

So it’s sort of a competition for truth. I think it’s a very powerful concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that so I think the Community Notes thing is very powerful.” – Elon Musk

TWITTER OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES THEIR VIOLENT SPEECH POLICY

Here’s the Twitter thread on February 28th which summarizes the policy:

“We’ve made a few changes to our policies around violent content and similar language. 
Today, we’ve officially launched our Violent Speech policy, which prohibits violent threats, wishes of harm, glorification of violence, and incitement of violence.  
Twitter has a zero-tolerance approach towards Violent Speech, and in most cases, we will suspend any account violating this policy. 
For less severe violations, we may require you to delete the content before you can access your account again.  
If you believe a tweet violates this policy, please report it to us right away. 
As always, if you think we made a mistake, you can file an appeal by following the process here: Appeal a locked or suspended account."

Twitter’s straightforward policy on violent threats (taken from their official website) states,

“You may not threaten to inflict physical harm on others, which includes (but is not limited to) threatening to kill, torture, sexually assault, or otherwise hurt someone. This also includes threatening to damage civilian homes and shelters, or infrastructure that is essential to daily, civic, or business activities.”  

Twitter explains Wishes of Harm “You may not wish, hope, or express desire for harm. This includes (but is not limited to) hoping for others to die, suffer illnesses, tragic incidents, or experience other physically harmful consequences.” 

For Incitement of Violence, Twitter states, “You may not incite, promote, or encourage others to commit acts of violence or harm, which includes (but is not limited to) encouraging others to hurt themselves or inciting others to commit atrocity crimes including crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide. This also includes using coded language (often referred to as “dog whistles”) to indirectly incite violence.”

Lastly, Twitter details Glorification of Violence, “You may not glorify, praise, or celebrate acts of violence where harm occurred, which includes (but is not limited to) expressing gratitude that someone experienced physical harm or praising Violent entities and Perpetrators of Violent Attacks. This also includes glorifying animal abuse or cruelty.”

Twitter’s easy-to-understand Violent Speech Policy also includes short explanations of “What is not a violation of this policy?” and “What happens if you violate this policy?” 

This is Twitter’s overview, which you may find valuable, 

“Twitter is a place where people can express themselves, learn about what’s happening, and debate global issues.

However, healthy conversations can’t thrive when violent speech is used to deliver a message.

As a result, we have a zero tolerance policy towards violent speech in order to ensure the safety of our users and prevent the normalization of violent actions.” Twitter

COMMUNITY NOTES: MORE IMPROVEMENTS

I’ve written about Community Notes often, and Twitter is continuously improving in this area. 

This week an update was shared, stating, “Major under-the-hood update: Community Notes can now run multiple note ranking models in parallel, facilitating both expansion to new countries and experimentation with improved ranking approaches. As always, the code and data is open source: GitHub Ranking Notes.” 

Twitter explains, “We’re now running three models: our existing core model, an experimental variant of the core model that could potentially increase note coverage, and a model that will help assess and improve quality as Community Notes expands to new countries and languages in the coming weeks.” 

If you’re not familiar with Community Notes, you can read more here. 

FUTURE PLANS: VIDEO, SUPRESSED TWEETS, FEEDBACK FOR BasedAI

Elon Musk is known for thoughtfully taking user’s suggestions into consideration. 

On February 28, Elon liked this suggestion from Steven Mark Ryan, Tesla YouTube personality, “Twitter desperately needs 1.5x, 2x etc video playback speed. I have taken to downloading videos from twitter via a third party app to watch them at 2x on my computer. Would also be cool to have an AI trim out silences automatically & give us a button to toggle that mode on/off.” 

Always caring about people and quick to fix problems, Elon Musk confirmed Twitter is looking into concerns by Zuby Music, a well-known rapper with 1M followers and others.  They communicated on February 28 that “Many of my followers aren’t seeing my tweets anymore and others are experiencing the same.” 

T(w)itter Daily News translated a comment by Guillaume Verdon, a software engineer that Elon replied to.  “IMO Elon Musk most likely to use Twitter for data + RLHF & Tesla Dojo supercomputer for training/inference of LLMs at BasedAI. It’s all coming together.”  This statement and Elon’s positive response strongly suggest that Twitter data will be included in building a new improved ChatGPT. Let’s break this down.  

Elon Musk, noticing that OpenAI’s ChatGPT has recently shown deep problems which do not seem to be improving, is seeking to create a new organization, “BasedAI” which will draw from several areas for success:

Twitter image of exchange with Elon Musk and Guillaume Verdon, February 28, 2023

CONCLUSION

Twitter functions as an incredible tool because of its reach to the most influential people in the world. Now, with the launch of their Violent Speech Policy and the expansion of Community Notes to Brazil, they can help create even more meaningful, uplifting conversations and media topics geared towards all communities around the world.

Elon Musk is known for taking users’ suggestions into consideration, so don’t be afraid to post your thoughts and opinions, it might just have some influence on Twitter’s future features. In summary, whether you use Twitter for entertainment or business purposes, remember that Twitter seeks to spread positivity and inclusion to everyone who is part of its community.

I love it when I see people across various communities interacting and engaging in conversations with understanding and respect for one another. Use Twitter more often, try out Community Notes and believe that Elon Musk really cares to hear our thoughts – these are some small steps we can take each day on building a better social media universe.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 23, 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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Twitter: Moderation in Content Moderation! (This week’s updates)

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Twitter is improving fast under the direction of Elon Musk.  In this article, I’ll highlight this week’s updates and give you a heads-up on what’s to come!  

THE WEEK’S TWITTER UPDATES

Elon Musk emphasizes free speech

Elon Musk shared a meme depicting a medieval man warning “Martin” not to post his note in the public square because “You know that it’s just going to be taken down and you’ll be blocked from posting for the next 30 days.”

“All things in moderation, especially content moderation” Elon Musk

Two-Factor Authentification Update 

Twitter sent out messages to all users that non-Blue subscribers would be transitioning to app-based 2FA authentication.  This is a small change and users are being conveniently notified directly in the app. Twitter’s official message: “Effective March 20, 2023, only Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to use text messages as their two-factor authentication method. Other accounts can use an authentication app or security key for 2FA.” Elon Musk added, “Use of free authentication apps for 2FA will remain free and are much more secure than SMS.”

Twitter Blue

Twitter improved readability on long tweets for Twitter Blue subscribers with smaller font/better spacing. I created my first longform tweet, and it came out nicely!

Community Notes helps people gain better context

Elon Musk’s message about Community Notes may inspire more people to sign up to use it. Elon tweeted, “Community Notes is a game changer for combating wrong information.”  

Beginning February 21, Twitter users started getting a heads-up if a Community Note starts showing on a Tweet they replied to, liked or retweeted. This feature helps give people extra context that they might otherwise miss. For more details see here. 

Elon Musk explains Community Notes,

“I think there’s something that we’re putting a lot of effort into called Community Notes. It’s currently just in English, but we will be expanding it to all languages. 
That is I think quite a good way to assess the truth of things where it’s the community itself, basically, the people of Earth who are basically, not exactly voting but competing to provide the most accurate information. 
So it’s sort of a competition for truth. I think it’s a compelling concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that so I think the Community Notes thing is very powerful.” – Elon Musk at WGS Feb 15, 2023

Twitter Files #16

Twitter Files #16 was released on February 18 by Matt Taibbi.  Comic Interlude: A Media Experiment highlights how mainstream media was silent on what the Twitter files published because it does not fit their narrative.  You can read how elected officials (both democrat and republican) demanded censorship from Twitter.  Many examples are cited.  

Matt Taibbi says, “The real story emerging in the #TwitterFiles is about a ballooning federal censorship bureaucracy that’s not aimed at either the left or the right per se, but at the whole population of outsiders, who are being systematically defined as threats.”

“Beginning in March, we’ll start using the Twitter Files to tell this larger story about how Americans turned their counterterrorism machinery against themselves, to disastrous effect, through little-known federal agencies like the Global Engagement Center (GEC).”

WHAT’S TO COME

Advertisements for products you may really want

Twitter advertisements were the topic of a thread on February 17 between former ads lead at Twitter and Sirine (a friend of mine from Twitter).  

Elon starts with an optimistic tweet, “Sorry for showing you so many irrelevant & annoying ads on Twitter! We’re taking the (obvious) corrective action of tying ads to keywords & topics in tweets, like Google does with search. This will improve contextual relevance dramatically.”  The former Twitter employee quips back in a rude tone, “As the former lead for Ads at Twitter, I can confidently say this man has no idea wtf he’s talking about.”  Not missing a beat, Elon replies with, “My apologies, you must be a genius, which is why Twitter has the worst ad relevance on Earth. Almost nobody buys anything on Twitter, but almost everyone on Instagram does. That is being fixed.”  Next Sirine comments, “Speaking of personal experience, I’ve never seen *Any* relevant ad on Twitter since I made my account!” Elon replies to Sirine “You are not alone. When I ask people if they use Twitter, almost all have for many years. When I ask if they’ve ever bought something from an ad after using the site for a decade, the answer is almost always no. That’s insane! The biggest problem is that Twitter optimized for impressions over clicks, with the perverse result that it *maximized* ad irrelevance, because clicking on an ad takes you away from Twitter, thus reducing impressions generated per user-minute.  The sheer madness of this takes a moment to appreciate.”

In summary, contextual relevance is needed for Twitter ads just as they are for ads on Instagram or TikToc.  If you have never made a purchase based on a Twitter ad, you are the majority.  It is possible that will change in the future. 

Better ease of use to help communicate on Twitter

Elon Musk looks for ways to improve Twitter directly from people who use Twitter.  A feature similar to what you can do in a smartphone direct message will come to Twitter.  Soon you’ll `have the ability to hold down and reply to a specific message in a group chat.  Also, you may be able to @ mention someone in groups. This idea came from a survey run by Prof. TroonyToons and the vote in favor of these changes won at 83.9% FOR the features.  Elon Musk often replies to Twitter accounts both large and small, unverified and verified.  Prof. TroonyToons ran a great and useful survey.

Twitter algorithm to be open source soon

Elon Musk plans for Twitter to open source their algorithm next week.  On Feb 21 he tweeted, “Prepare to be disappointed at first when our algorithm is made open source next week, but it will improve rapidly!” 

Elon Musk explained how Twitter’s For You tab works,  “Note: if many people who you follow or like also follow me, it is highly probable that the algorithm will recommend my tweets. It’s not super sophisticated. In coming months, we will offer the ability to adjust the algorithm to closer match what is most compelling to you.”

This is great news, as it gives Twitter users the option (if they want it) to have more control over what they do or don’t see.  

Twitter to be a place for all people

Elon Musk elaborated on Feb 7 that, “Going forward, Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values, rather than trying to impose its own specific values on the world.” 

This was shared at the WGS 2023 as well with these words,

“I mean, I was a little worried about the direction that, and the effect of social media on the world and especially Twitter. I thought it was very important for there to be a maximally trusted sort of Digital Public Square where people within countries and internationally can communicate with the least amount of censorship allowed by law, and obviously that varies a lot by jurisdiction. 
I think in general, social media companies should adhere to the laws of countries and not try to put a *thumb on the scale beyond the laws of the countries. I think this is something that is probably agreeable to the legislators and to the people of most countries. 

So that’s the general idea, it’s just to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley, which are somewhat of a niche ideology, as compared to the rest of the world. 

I think Twitter was doing a little too much to impose a niche 'San Francisco-Berkeley' ideology on the world.  You know, I thought it was important for the future of civilization to try to correct that *thumb on the scale if you will and just have Twitter more accurately reflect like I said, the values of the people of Earth. That's the intention and hopefully, we succeed in doing that.”
Elon Musk at WGS 2023

Elon Musk’s talk at the World Government Summit 2023 (Dubai) was on February 15 about his vision for Twitter and X.com. The full text of his talk about Twitter is here,

https://whatsuptwitter.wordpress.com/2023/02/16/kindness/

Rumors

There are rumors floating around (on Twitter) that soon various fonts will be available for Twitter users.  Another rumor is that Twitter may begin testing its own “coin.”  

CONCLUSION

Here’s my quick summary from this week,

  • Content on Twitter will reflect a multitude of outlooks and not be excessively moderated
  • Users who opt for secure 2FA with Twitter will need to use free authentication apps. Exception: Blue subscribers
  • Longform tweets (Blue feature) will have smaller font/better spacing
  • Community Notes will notify you if a tweet you interacted with has a public note appear, providing you added context
  • Community Notes is expanding to other countries/languages
  • Twitter Files #16 gave examples that should have been covered by journalists but never were. Global Engagement Center (GEC) is one obscure federal agency that we will learn more about in upcoming files
  • No one wants useless ads and Elon Musk’s Twitter ads will soon have contextual relevance
  • Twitter DMs will rival Smartphone DMs in reply capabilities, allowing you to hold-reply to messages
  • Twitter algorithm will be open-sourced soon, expect it to improve over time
  • “Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values” – Elon Musk

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Twitter HQ unknown photographer circa 2013

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 23, 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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What Elon Musk had to say about Twitter at World Government Summit 2023, a transcript

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Elon Musk talks at World Government Summit 2023

Elon Musk spoke about Twitter at the world conference on February 14, 2023 and here is a transcript of that conversation. My goal/mission in this blog post is to preserve the important and visionary words of Elon Musk.  Enjoy.

Elon explains why he bought Twitter,

“I mean I thought about creating something from scratch but I thought Twitter would perhaps accelerate progress versus creating something from scratch by 3 to 5 years. 
I think we are seeing a tremendous technology acceleration that 3 to 5 years is actually worth a lot.  
I mean, I was a little worried about the direction that, and the effect of social media on the world and especially Twitter. I thought it was very important for there to be a maximally trusted sort of Digital Public Square where people within countries and internationally can communicate with the least amount of censorship allowed by law, and obviously that varies a lot by jurisdiction. 
I think in general, social media companies should adhere to the laws of countries and not try to put a *thumb on the scale beyond the laws of the countries. I think this is something that is probably agreeable to the legislators and to the people of most countries. 

So that’s the general idea, it’s just to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley, which are somewhat of a niche ideology, as compared to the rest of the world. 

I think Twitter was doing a little too much to impose a niche 'San Francisco-Berkeley' ideology on the world.  You know, I thought it was important for the future of civilization to try to correct that *thumb on the scale if you will and just have Twitter more accurately reflect, like I said, the values of the people of Earth. That's the intention and hopefully we succeed in doing that.”

X.COM

Elon Musk image courtesy cb.doge

Elon talks about his vision for the future of twitter,

“Well I think it would be, you know, have this long-term sort of vision of something called x.com from way back in the day which is sort of like an everything app. where it’s just maximally useful. 
It does payments, provides financial services, provides information flow, really anything digital. It also provides secure communications. 
You know, I think [the goal of x.com] is be as useful as possible, as entertaining as possible, and a source of truth if you want to find out what’s going on and what’s really going on then you should be able to go on the x app and find out. 
So it’s sort of a source of truth and a maximally useful system. And Twitter is essentially an accelerant to that sort of maximally useful everything app.”

Elon Musk explains Twitter’s Community Notes in simple terms

“I think there’s something that we’re putting a lot of efforts into called Community Notes. It’s currently just in English, but we will be expanding it to all languages. 
That is I think quite a good way to assess the truth of things where it’s the community itself basically the people of Earth who are basically, not exactly voting but competing to provide the most accurate information. 
So it’s sort of a competition for truth. I think it’s a very powerful concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that so I think the Community Notes thing is very powerful. 
I think we are trying to have as many organizations and people and institutions verified as being legitimately those people and organizations is important, and to have the organizational affiliation clearly identified so that if you want to find out if somebody’s actually, if an account is actually from a member of parliament or a journalist or if let’s say, a Twitter handle actually belongs to Disney corporation or something like that, you can go on Twitter and it’s sort of an identity layer of the Internet you can confirm that is, in fact, the case.  
I think once you’ve got these interlocking, sort of identities, it’s actually very hard to be deceptive in that case, and it’s also, you have a reputation to protect at that point. So I think then people are far more likely to be measured in their response and will be more reasonable, since they have reputational value at that point. 

So these are some of the ideas that I have, and you know I'm not saying that for sure it will succeed or that it’s going to be perfect but I am confident that it will over time head in a good direction. and I think that the evidence for that will be, do people find it useful?  
As we’re measuring sort of the total user minutes, but not just user minutes, unregretted used minutes which I think that that’s the key figure of merit. 
For example, TikTok has a very high usage but I often hear people say well. I spent two hours on TikTok, but I regret those two hours.  I’m not trying to knock TikTok, but it’s just we don’t want that to be the case with Twitter. 
We want to say like 'ok, you spent half an hour on Twitter, but you found it to be useful and entertaining, and a good thing in your life. and ultimately be a force for good for civilization, that’s the aspiration.”

The most effective way to use Twitter

Elon talked about how governments and organizations can best use Twitter,

"I think, generally, I would recommend really communicating a lot on Twitter. And I think it’s good for people to speak in their voice as opposed to how they think they should speak. Sometimes people think, ‘I should speak in this way that is expected of me,’ but it ends up sounding somewhat at times, stiff and not real. 
You know like if you read a press release from a corporation it just sounds like propaganda. I would encourage CEOs and companies and legislators and ministers and so forth to speak authentically. If there's a particular policy to explain it. 
I think sometimes there's a sometimes a concern about criticism but I think at the end of the day having some criticism is fine. It's really not that bad. I'm constantly attacked on Twitter, frankly. And I don't mind, you have to be somewhat thick-skinned I suppose at times you know because they really try and twist the knife. 
But I think as a forum for communication, its great. I would just encourage more communication and like I said, to sort of speak in an authentic voice.  Like sometimes people will have someone else be their sort of Twitter manager or something like that and I think people should just do their own tweets. 
And like sometimes you make a mistake or something, its fine. But I think, doing your own tweets, just like you would give a talk here or have a meeting at a summit, that's the way to do it is to actually do the tweets yourself and convey the message that you want directly.”

Single world government as a civilizational risk

“One thing I should say, I know this is called the World Government Summit, but I think we should be a little bit concerned about actually becoming too much of a single world government if I may say that we want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having, frankly, this may sound a little odd, too much cooperation between governments.  

If you look at history and the rise and fall of civilizations where all throughout history civilizations have risen and fallen but it hasn't meant the doom of humanity as a whole because they've been all these separate civilizations that were separated by great distances. 

While Rome was falling, Islam was rising so you had, you know, the sort of caliphate doing incredibly well while Rome was doing terribly. That actually ended up being a source of preservation of knowledge and many scientific advancements.  

So I think we want to be a little bit cautious about being too much of a single civilization because if we are too much of a single civilization then the whole thing may collapse. 

I'm obviously not suggesting war or anything like that but I think we want to be a little bit wary of actually cooperating too much. It sounds a little odd but we want to have some amount of civilizational diversity such that if something does go wrong with some part of civilization that the whole thing doesn't collapse and humanity keeps moving forward.” - Elon Musk

Twitter’s next CEO?

Elon was asked if he has identified a CEO for Twitter and when he would announce who it will be,

"Well, I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it's in a financially healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out, so I'm guessing probably towards the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company.  I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year."

Twitter is a Startup in Reverse

“Twitter is still somewhat of a startup in reverse and so there’s a lot of work here to get Twitter in sort of a stable position and, like I said, to really build the engine of software engineering at Twitter and really have a great product roadmap and the people in place to implement that product roadmap. And so it is not my intention to work like crazy, I mean I think I still am, I’m comfortable with a mere 80-hour workweek. That would be fine! That is what I would aspire to.”

CONCLUSION

I agree the ‘San Francisco-Berkeley’ ideology is niche. Elon Musk said he thinks its “important for the future of civilization to try to correct that thumb on the scale if you will and just have Twitter more accurately reflect the values of the people of Earth.”

*Thumb on the scale means “An act of bias or a tactic for cheating which creates a situation that unfairly benefits one party involved in an interaction.”

Many people are excited about the future of x.com. Elon’s vision is for it to be as “useful as possible, as entertaining as possible, and a source of truth if you want to find out what’s going on and what’s really going on then you should be able to go on the x app and find out.”

A great way to understand Twitter’s Community Notes is as a competition for truth. In Elon’s words, “I think it’s a very powerful concept to have a competition for truth, because you also said, like what is truth, it’s because what may be true to self, may not be viewed as true to others, but you want to have the closest approximation of that.”

I agree with Elon Musk that the best tweets are genuine tweets and not those curated by a social media manager or a dry press release. Making mistakes in a tweet is okay and happens often to many people so it need not be scary and neither should criticism.

Elon cautioned against “being too much of a single civilization because if we are too much of a single civilization then the whole thing may collapse.” The way he explained it was appropriate for his audience of mostly middle eastern people at the World Government Summit, he said, “While Rome was falling, Islam was rising so you had, you know, the sort of caliphate doing incredibly well while Rome was doing terribly. That actually ended up being a source of preservation of knowledge and many scientific advancements.”

Twitter may have a new CEO near the end of 2023 and first Elon Musk will make certain Twitter is on track for healthy finances and a clearly laid out product roadmap.

Twitter HQ in San Francisco. Photo Courtesy Twitter.
Original Twitter HQ in San Francisco. Photo Courtesy Twitter.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 16, 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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Twitter Heads in the Direction of Financial Health under Elon Musk

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Welcome back to What’s Up Twitter. Thanks for joining me for a moment as we look at how Elon Musk continues to improve Twitter this last week and lead it into a financially healthy place.

Four changes this week involve thoughtful ways for Twitter to generate a revenue stream based on providing value and a good user experience for organizations and individuals.

  • Major advertisers support Twitter over the Super Bowl
  • Twitter Blue expands to 6 more countries
  • Verified Organization plan for Gold checks and Affiliates
  • Enterprise API
Elon Musk frees the Bird. Art courtesy The Rebel Bear.

Major advertisers show support for Twitter

February 2: Elon Musk takes moment to thank the National Football League (NFL) and major advertisers for their support as we approach Super Bowl Sunday. PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch are just a few companies that welcome the opportunity to make deals with Twitter. 

Paid Twitter Blue expands

February 3: Twitter Blue is available in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Spain.  Maren Kahnert creator of Elon Musk Interviews reported that she signed up for Twitter Blue. Deborah in France thanked Elon Musk, saying “France Loves Twitter!” 

Verified Organizations with Twitter

February 3: Twitter opens early access to its Verified Organization plan.  In a tweet from Matt Navarra, some of the details were revealed. A Gold checkmark for organizations ($1000/month) and affiliation badges for its associates ($50/month) will boost Tweets by that organization. 

My take is this is a great deal for organizations as it is an inexpensive way to advertise. Imagine advertising for only $1000/month? It should encourage engaging and creative ‘marketing’ tweets.

February 7: As suggested by Twitter user Nima Owji, Twitter created a tab for affiliates. The Official Tesla account has 7 affiliates on their tab. 

Enterprise API with Twitter versus “Free API”

February 4: Elon Musk listens to feedback from Twitter users, he states “Responding to feedback, Twitter will enable a light, write-only API for bots providing good content that is free.” *API means Application programming interface and one benign example is the below account for Pepito.

Commenting on a link to a beloved bot account called Pepito the Cat, Elon Musk delighted users by agreeing, “I guess we could give all Verified users access to the API for posts like this.”  You can follow this account at https://twitter.com/PepitoTheCat and here’s the French feline!

Pepito The Cat, and account that uses Twitter’s API

February 8: The Twitter dev team shared information about “Enterprise API” in a series of tweets, 

“We have been busy with some updates to the Twitter API so you can continue to build and innovate with us. 
We’re excited to announce an extension of the current free Twitter API access through February 13. Here’s what we’re shipping then: Paid basic access that offers low level of API usage, and access to Ads API for a $100 monthly fee.  
A new form of free access will be introduced as this is extremely important to our ecosystem – limited to Tweet creation of up to 1,500 Tweets per month for a single authenticated user token, including Login with Twitter.  
Also on February 13, we will deprecate the Premium API. If you’re subscribed to Premium, you can apply for Enterprise to continue using these endpoints.  This is a new chapter for the Twitter API to increase quality, reduce spam, and enable a thriving ecosystem. We appreciate your patience as we implement these changes and we can’t wait to see what you build next! Stay tuned for more information on continued Twitter API access.”  - Twitter devs

Avoiding bankruptcy

February 5: Elon Musk expressed appreciation for all who are supporting Twitter.  Bankruptcy has been avoided under Elon’s leadership even as he spent countless hours at Tesla and SpaceX. Elon Musk would like to see Twitter become financially healthy soon.

“Last 3 months were extremely tough, as had to save Twitter from bankruptcy, while fulfilling essential Tesla & SpaceX duties. Wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. Twitter still has challenges, but is now trending to breakeven if we keep at it. Public support is much appreciated!” - Elon Musk 

“To be extra clear, Twitter is definitely not financially healthy yet, but is trending to be so. Lots of work still needed to get there.” - Elon Musk

Elon was asked by a Twitter user if it is “Worse than 2008 or production hell?” Elon replied, “Similar.” 

February 5: Elon Musk’s team is called to fix an issue reported by many Twitter users. Elon said, “Daily user count & total user minutes are still strong, but engagement on some accounts is weirdly low.” – Elon Musk

Elon Musk is constantly engaged with Twitter users and this is a big reason why Twitter is able to improve so rapidly.

Twitter Files are appreciated by most Americans

February 6: Most Americans approve of the Twitter Files. A poll conducted  January 31 – February 2, 2023 by Rasmussen Reports found that 63% of American adults approve of Elon Musk’s decision to authorize the publication of the “Twitter files” and 42% strongly approve. 

I think the Twitter Files are Elon Musk’s brilliant way of “disinfecting with sunlight” to clear the decks at Twitter and win the public’s trust.

February 6: T(w)itter Takeover News found an update on the Twitter App designed to give Twitter a seamless and enjoyable experience.  The update allows the user app to default to whichever tab so you will not have to switch back to “For you” or “Following.” 

Twitter as a place for everyone

February 7: Elon Musk tweets, “Going forward, Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values, rather than trying to impose its own specific values on the world.”

My take is this is essential to preserving humanity and it may even serve to extend the window of opportunity for humans to make it to Mars.

Twitter can be a communication tool that can save lives. It is much more than entertainment.

February 8: In the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey the Turkish government contacted Twitter to say they are restoring Twitter access in the country.  Elon Musk said, “Twitter has been informed by the Turkish government that access will be reenabled shortly.” 

Longform Tweets

February 8: Twitter Blue rolled out an amazing feature where people can now tweet up to 4000 characters instead of just 280.  Here’s the details: 

“need more than 280 characters to express yourself? we know that lots of you do… and while we love a good thread, sometimes you just want to Tweet everything all at once. we get that. so we're introducing longer Tweets! you're gonna want to check this out. 

starting today, if you’re subscribed to Twitter Blue in the US you can create longer Tweets. most standard functions of Tweeting still apply, whether you want to post a picture, use a hashtag, or create a poll. but now you can type all the way up to 4,000 characters. for now, longer Tweets on web can't be saved as drafts or scheduled to send later. but don’t worry, Twitter is still Twitter. 
we know longer Tweets could mean a lot of scrolling, so they’ll be capped at 280 characters on your timeline and you’ll see a “Show more” prompt to click and read the whole Tweet. while only Blue subscribers can post longer Tweets, anyone and everyone can read them. you can reply to, retweet, and quote Tweet a longer Tweet, no matter if you’re a Twitter Blue subscriber or not. 

subscribers will be able to reply and QT with up to 4,000 characters. let us know what you think. we’re excited to see how you use the extra space! if you’ve got more to say, you can subscribe to Twitter Blue by clicking the link in our bio.” - Twitter Blue

CONCLUSION

The tide is turning slowly in society and I am starting to hear some people speak up about how thankful they are that Elon Musk bought Twitter. And for Twitter to be a platform for free speech it must also be financially successful and I believe it is heading in that direction under Elon Musk.

  • Major advertisers like the NFL are showing support for Twitter
  • Users in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Spain can now pay for Twitter Blue
  • The Verified Organization plan is valuable for both Twitter (revenue) and organizations. It provides the Gold Check and can be used by companies for marketing
  • Enterprise API from Twitter and other API features may create revenue
  • Honoring transparency, Elon Musk explained Twitter was being saved from Bankruptcy

Get up to speed with Twitter

Twitter Could Usher in a New Era for Citizen Journalism with Payments | Visibility | Dogecoin This article highlights the news from the week of February 1 at Twitter. The biggest news was Elon Musk utilizing Twitter to encourage citizen journalism through payment sharing.

In my article “Twitter Just Gets Better with Elon Musk at the Helm,” read about how Twitter is on the path to becoming a one-stop shop for people to keep folders with categorized information, a place to come for news, and a place for content creators to earn an income for their efforts.

Photo San Francisco Courtesy Ethan Chang on Unsplash

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 8, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both 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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Twitter Could Usher in a New Era for Citizen Journalism with Payments | Visibility | Dogecoin

Gail Alfar2 Comments

Welcome back to What’s Up Twitter. There are cool developments coming down the pipeline for you as a Twitter user.

Also, do you think Twitter will accept Dogecoin? Share your ideas.

San Francisco, home of Twitter HQ is a gem at sunset. Used with permission from Romain Briaux from Unplash.

Twitter to open Beta version soon to reward creators!

Hundreds of talented citizen writers will soon have a chance to be financially compensated for their work. Elon Musk announced that co-tweets have ended to make way for a feature that will encourage citizen journalism.  

Writers with subscriptions activated will be able to publish directly on Twitter and get paid for it by adding essays as attachments to tweets.

Elon Musk announces new features for Twitter.
“You’re welcome. Axed them yesterday to focus on enabling writers to add essays as attachments to tweets. Combined with improvements to creator subscriptions (fka superfollow), you will be able to publish directly on Twitter & get paid for it. Beta version launching next week.  We’re also reviewing ad rev share for ads in a creator’s tweet replies – create an interesting thread and get paid for it!”  Elon Musk

Are you familiar with Tweet threads?  Many writers like Marc Andreessen and Trung Phan are known for their interesting threads.  These and others may soon be able to get paid for their threads by sharing ad revenue with Twitter. 

I think this is a great idea!  Did you know many writers are paid less than $20 per article to write what they are TOLD to write by editors?  They need income so they acquiesce and then they are targeted for doing a job to earn a living wage.  Imagine if these talented people could write freely and not have to support an agenda they disagree with.  I am excited to follow this development on Twitter.  This may be part of why Elon Musk purchased Twitter.

Issues with Twitter visibility

Late Tuesday evening on January 31, Elon Musk made his account private. This was to gauge tweet interaction invisibility, which was reported by many users as being limited when accounts were not made private. In one example by Ian Cheong, he had more engagement and visibility when his account was private than when it was public. I will update this article as this situation develops.

Ian Cheong was one of the first to discover visibility issues on Twitter.

The Twitter Files have been ignored by the mainstream media

This was expected and explained well by David Sacks,

“When Elon Musk made necessary business changes at Twitter, the media reacted with hysterical melodrama: he was “starving” employees; the site was facing “imminent collapse.” But when Twitter Files exposed state censorship and Hamilton68 fraud, they react with defeaning silence.”

What are some ideas on Twitter accepting dogecoin?

There is no indication that Twitter has immediate plans to accept Dogecoin and there are clues that Twitter is developing a payment system based on fiat money.  The biggest indicator of this is that Elon Musk shared on Twitter on January 31 that creators would soon receive revenue for their content. People already pay money to creators through monthly subscriptions but that money must go through Stripe. 

Stripe says, “Millions of companies of all sizes—from startups to Fortune 500s—use Stripe’s software and APIs to accept payments, send payouts, and manage their businesses online.”

Elon Musk loves vertically integrating his products on many levels at SpaceX and Tesla.  Will he reduce costs by vertically integrating an in-house payment system instead of paying to utilize Stripe’s software?  

There has been speculation from the dogecoin community in comments on Reddit about Twitter, Bitcoin and Elon Musk.  It is significant that SpaceX, Tesla as well as the Boring Co. have accepted payments in Dogecoin.  People bought Boring Co. Burnt Hair fragrance with Dogecoin in October 2022 and rides in the Boring Company Tunnels in Las Vegas appear to be available in Dogecoin by scanning a QR code to buy tickets.

Many people speculate that Twitter will do the same. In comments on Reddit, people know that Dogecoin has benefited from Elon Musk‘s interest. However, Elon Musk is not part of the Dogecoin Foundation and merely supports the coin because it is fun and has memes and makes more financial sense than other coins. 

I recently searched for current merch to buy with Dogecoin from Tesla and SpaceX and found none as of February 1, 2023.  The Tesla Cyberwhistle costs 1000 Dogecoin and it is out of stock. My take is that Twitter will solidify a financial network in the USA first with traditional fiat money and next year may introduce digital currency in Doge or Bitcoin or both.

The Tesla Cyberwhistle is 1000 DOGE and is OUT OF STOCK

CONCLUSION

The biggest news this week is the prospect of Elon Musk utilizing Twitter to encourage citizen journalism.  This takes incentives (money) so writers can earn their own way instead of answering to mainstream media outlets that dictate how they write or edit their work to promote an agenda. 

There are technical issues this week with Twitter and decreased tweet visibility.  Elon Musk is aware and his team will likely make fixing it a priority.  

Mainstream media continues to ignore and even ridicule the seriousness of the Twitter Files.  If you would like to research the files, check out www.twitterfiles.co 

Rumors are circulating about Twitter payment systems and nothing is verified but we do know that Twitter pays some content creators through Stripe.  We shall watch if Stripe continues to be Twitter’s choice as it is not a vertically integrated aspect of Twitter. 

What we do know is that all of Elon Musk’s companies (with the exception of Neuralink) have accepted Dogecoin thus far.  Many on Twitter would warmly welcome Dogecoin as a payment or integrated tip system on Twitter. 

There is more happening at Twitter

In my article “Twitter Just Gets Better with Elon Musk at the Helm,” read about how Twitter is on the path to becoming a one-stop shop for people to keep folders with categorized information, a place to come for news, and a place for content creators to earn an income for their efforts. There are little tweaks and improvements being made almost daily to Twitter’s features. From improving bookmarks to pinned lists, Elon Musk is making sure most people know what Twitter has to offer. He’s even going to make sure cool tweets in other languages (like Japanese) are translated and recommended to people around the globe.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – February 1, 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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Twitter Just Gets Better with Elon Musk at the Helm

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

Elon Musk is driving change at Twitter at a faster pace than most could imagine. If you know much about Elon, you’ll know he lives every day with a sense of urgency. Things tend to get done faster when he’s in charge. Here’s a few of the changes from the past week that “Mr. Tweet” has made,

  • Elon explains Twitter Lists
  • Community Notes improvements
  • Twitter to change how we see ads and will reward creators
  • Twitter as the source of truth
  • Twitter will become more international!
  • Twitter will pick up where you left off
  • Twitter Blue subscribers and all users get new features

Twitter Lists

There were many people new to Twitter or unaware of Twitter’s List feature. On January 20, Elon explained Lists in simple terms and Elon also said that lists were one of his favorite Twitter features. He added that,

“Creating pinned lists should automatically be offered if you swipe past Following. Also, we need to offer suggested lists by category, so you can use awesome subject matter lists created by others.“

Community Notes Improvements

Elon reassured users that community notes will not push any agenda but instead exist to maximize truth. He stated,

“We are going to great lengths to avoid the Wikipedia left wing editorial control problem. By the same token, Community Notes cannot be biased towards the right either. Maximizing for truth is the goal.”

Elon also explained that,

“Coming soon are notifications if you’ve replied, liked or retweeted something subsequently corrected by community.”

The Official Community Notes Twitter account also shared and image (see below)and an explanation of a new development that will affect all of Twitter. Previously a user could quote tweet to avoid Community Notes from being visible. This new development will change that,

“Community Notes are now also shown on Quote Tweets. This change boosts the impact of contributors’ efforts, and helps ensure context is shown everywhere it can be helpful. Live now in the web app, and coming soon to iOS and Android.”

Elon Musk has plans to have Community Notes operate on a wide scale, on January 19 he explained,

“Twitter is arguably already the least wrong source of truth on the Internet, but we obviously still have a long way to go. Enabling Community Notes to operate at very large scale and providing maximum transparency about how Twitter works are fundamental to building trust.”

Advertising on Twitter and possible rewards for creators

Elon aims to make Twitter a better user experience by reducing how often we see ads, as explained on January 21,

“Ads are too frequent on Twitter and too big. Taking steps to address both in coming weeks. and “Also, there will be a higher priced subscription that allows zero ads.”

Twitter content creators will also be pleased with another new development, which would be a creator fund to incentivize those that put up constant content and bring people on Twitter (suggested by Tyler Todt who is a personal fitness trainer with over 107K followers and produces interesting content on health.

Elon Musk’s Twitter aims to be the source of truth

When a reporter from Rebel News for WEFReports.com ran in to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla at Davos, he asked him some hard questions and then the video was banned on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube (It has since been spotted on Youtube). The video appears freely on Twitter with Elon Musk’s comment,

“Twitter is the source of truth.”

Twitter will become more International!

Elon Musk tweeted on January 20,

In coming months, Twitter will translate & recommend amazing tweets from people in other countries & cultures. There are epic tweets in other countries every day (Japan especially). (Tweets will be translated before being recommended). Interesting & entertaining content from around the world is worth seeing.”

Twitter will pick up where you left off

If you use Twitter, stop, then come back to it hours later, will take you back to where you left off to avoid confusion and allow you a better personal experience. Elon explained this on January 20,

“Next Twitter update will remember whether you were on For You (ie recommended), Following or list you made & stop switching you back to recommended tweets.”

Twitter Blue subscribers and all users get new features

The Official Twitter Blue account explained a new feature on January 20,

“For Twitter Blue subscribers, when you save a new Bookmark, you can still save directly to a folder by holding down the new flag icon. Long press from the Tweet details to access Bookmark folders or individual Tweets after saving a new Bookmark.”

Folders or bookmarks can be accessed on your phone, ipad or laptop. Expect them to undergo a lot of improvements such as the ability to organize them as well as search through them.

For all Twitter users, Elon Musk explained,

“Major Twitter improvement we just released is that you can now bookmark tweets from tweet details page. Importantly, bookmarks are *private*, unlike likes. No one other than you can see your bookmarks.”

Elon Musk encourages Companies to post more content

When Twitter user Mathias Fons shared that, “Tesla started to actively tweet updates & educational content at the start of December. The outcome has been tremendous. I hope that Tesla continues utilizing Twitter like this! Twitter users & companies should take note of this—post interesting content & results will follow.” Elon Musk agreed, saying,

“Exactly! If companies post interesting or entertaining content, they will gain an audience rapidly.”

Hopefully, companies will start to post interesting content!

CONCLUSION

Twitter is on the path to becoming a one stop shop for people to keep folders with categorized information, a place to come for news, and a place for content creators to earn an income for their efforts. There are little tweaks and improvements being made almost daily to Twitter’s features. From improving bookmarks to pinned lists, Elon Musk is making sure most people know what Twitter has to offer. He’s even going to make sure cool tweets in other languages (like Japanese) are translated and recommended to people around the globe.

Photo of Austin, Texas by Carlos Alfonso on Unsplash

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 24, 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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Enjoying the benefits of Twitter Blue: without the blue check 

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

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!

Town Square in Poland. Photo courtesy Malyushev on Unsplash.

Get up to speed on the Square: 5 Quick Updates

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

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.
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
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.
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.

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Goodbye Legacy Twitter, Twitter 2.0 is Here (5 updates)

Gail AlfarLeave a comment
Twitter HQ in San Francisco. Photo Courtesy Twitter.
Original Twitter HQ in San Francisco. Photo Courtesy Twitter.

Legacy Twitter is gone. Twitter 2.0 is here and rapidly moving forward to encourage everyone to create a free account, and you may be considering a monthly $8 Twitter Blue subscription.  I’ll share 5 new updates and my take on why I think Twitter Blue could be right for you.  

  • Freedom of speech is at the core of Twitter 2.0
  • Twitter will always make removing child sexual exploitation material the #1 priority
  • Community Notes: An excellent way to allow free speech AND correct false information
  • Twitter Blue details:  For the avid Twitter user (decide on your profile pic and username first)
  • Twitter 2.0 has a strict anti-doxxing policy, designed to protect you and your family

1. FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS AT THE CORE OF TWITTER 2.0

Elon Musk’s Twitter will allow you a place for freedom of speech.  You will have the right to express your opinions without being subjected to censorship because of those opinions. Elon Musk said,

“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach.
Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter.
You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.” – Elon Musk

2. TWITTER WILL ALWAYS MAKE REMOVING CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION MATERIAL THE #1 PRIORITY

Twitter‘s number one priority, since being owned by Elon Musk, is to remove child exploitation material (CSAM). 

Twitter Rules include zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation, Twitter’s website says,

“We have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation on Twitter. Learn more.”

You may still find these things on Twitter, and the process for reporting them for removal has been made simpler. 

3. COMMUNITY NOTES: AN EXCELLENT WAY TO ALLOW FREE SPEECH AND CORRECT FALSE INFORMATION

You may sign up to participate in Twitter Community Notes.  This is a great way to add context to misleading information on Twitter by leaving notes and/or citing reliable sources.  Twitter states,

“Community Notes aim to create a better informed world by empowering people on Twitter to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading Tweets. Contributors can leave notes on any Tweet and if enough contributors from different points of view rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a Tweet.”

Example of Community Notes Rating. Courtesy Johnna Crider.
Example of Community Notes Rating. Courtesy Johnna Crider.

4. TWITTER BLUE:  FOR THE AVID TWITTER USER

Twitter Blue is great if you use Twitter often and want to support the platform.  Most notably with Blue you get a blue check. Blue checks can be temporarily removed if you decide to change any part of your username or update your profile picture.  So be sure you are happy with those things BEFORE you click “Subscribe.”

Blue gives you a handy edit button and allows you time to edit tweets and create Folders (I use this a lot). 

The edit button is one of the best things about Twitter Blue. In the example below, “Edit Tweet” gives you 30 minutes to edit the tweet.   A notation appears on the tweet if it has been edited. 

Twitter Edit Tweet function. Credit, the author.
Twitter Edit Tweet function. Credit, the author.

As soon as I paid for Blue, I created multiple FOLDERS (see below) for favorite videos, recipes, education and more.  These folders are private.  Each folder can hold unlimited bookmarked tweets.  If your Twitter Blue subscription lapses and you renew it later, those folders are still there for you when you come back.  

UNDO TWEETS is a feature I don’t use often, and when I need to I am thankful I have it.  You will set a length of time you want to undo tweets before they go public.  You can choose which type of tweets you want to apply this to. In the example below, I set the timing to 20 seconds, and you may opt for up to 1 minute. 

Twitter Blue legacy feature: “Undo Tweets and Folders.” image credit the author
Twitter Blue legacy feature: “Undo Tweets and Folders.” image credit the author

5. TWITTER 2.0 PROTECTS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

Twitter has a strict anti-doxxing policy, as stated here,

“When someone shares an individual’s live location on Twitter, there is an increased risk of physical harm.
Moving forward, we’ll remove Tweets that share this information, and accounts dedicated to sharing someone else’s live location will be suspended.” – Twitter

Twiiter makes it clear that you can still share your own live location. Any tweets that share someone else’s historical (not same-day) location information are also not prohibited by the policy. It is also clear that sharing location information related to a public engagement or event, such as a concert or political event, is also permitted. You can read Twitter private information and media policy here.

BONUS: WHAT TWITTER BLUE WILL OFFER SOON: 

Twitter 2.0 is committed to offering more features soon.  These include:

  • Rocket to the top of replies, mentions and search with Tweets from verified users being prioritized – helping to fight scams and spam
  • See 50% fewer ads than non-subscribers
  • You’ll finally be able to post longer videos to Twitter
Twitter Subscribe button as of 12/15/22. Image Cortesy Twitter.
Twitter Subscribe button as of 12/15/22. Image Courtesy Twitter.

Twitter Blue $8 is a Limited time offer, as shown in the screenshot above. Be sure to sign up for Blue on the web, or you’ll pay $11.  

Twitter states on its website, “Free Twitter isn’t going away. Twitter Blue simply offers an opt-in layer of customization for your Twitter experience.” 

CONCLUSION

My take is Twitter Blue is fine for anyone who A. Can afford it and B. Wants to support Elon Musk’s efforts to remove CSAM and promote free speech. I think everyone should create a free account, and if you want a challenge, then also apply to participate in Community Notes and report abuses through the Twitter reporting system, especially report any CSAM.

  • Twitter 2.0 is a welcome place for you to express yourself. Your views matter!
  • Twitter 2.0 has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation, this was not the case with Twitter 1.0
  • Twitter 2.0 has Community Notes, which helps simultaneously encourages free speech, and allows for misinformation to be corrected or challenged.
  • Twitter Blue now includes the famous blue check and an edit button and all of the legacy benefits from Twitter 1.0
  • Twitter 2.0 aims to keep you and your family safe. That’s why it has a strict anti-doxxing policy

I hope you will sign up for your free account and join me on Twitter at @GailAlfarATX

Photo by Megan Bucknall on Unsplash
Photo by Megan Bucknall on Unsplash

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 16, 2022. 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. 

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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!

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