Tag: Twitter

Twitter: Moderation in Content Moderation! (This week’s updates)

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

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

Gail AlfarLeave a comment
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

Gail AlfarLeave a comment

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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My writing about Twitter strives to be accurate & leave you feeling optimistic and excited about the future. If you’re able, consider a monthly donation to support!

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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

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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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Get Up to Speed on Twitter (7 Updates) in less than 2 minutes (January Edition)

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Twitter continues to improve and grow and attract new users as it has quickly become the number one App people choose to download on the Apple app store for news. 

This article will sum up some of the improvements to expect in Twitter mentioned so far in January by official Twitter accounts and Elon Musk. 

  • Twitter said ‘Au revoir’ to Revue! Elon Musk asked his followers if they felt Twitter should keep Revue. The great majority of Twitter users replied that they do not use it, many did not even know what it was. Jan 18 marks the last day for this newsletter/email subscription feature that was rarely used
  • AXIOS reported Dozens of media companies set 2023 content deals with Twitter.  See https://www.axios.com/2023/01/17/twitter-media-sports-content-deals  This is splendid news and should lead to long-term funding for Twitter
  • Elon Musk encouraged corporations to use their free Twitter accounts to tweet. Elon said,

“Companies in general are missing the incredible opportunity

that Twitter provides to reach customers.

Just Tweet interesting things!

That’s all it takes.” – Elon Musk

Elon Musk explains Verified Tweets

  • Elon Musk said in response to a question from Brayden Fox, “Twitter Verified tweets are more likely to be recommended to others, as they are less likely to be bots or troll farms.”
  • Elon also said, “Trashing accounts that you hate will cause our algorithm to show you more of those accounts, as it is keying off of your interactions. Basically saying if you love trashing *that* account, then you will probably also love trashing *this* account. Not actually wrong.

Twitter’s Algorithms will be open sourced

Transparency is important to gain trust and Elon Musk is making good on his commitment to open source Twitter’s recommendation algorithm. Elon said, “The recommendation algorithm will get much better and it will be open source”

Verification for Organizations to launch soon

Twitter Blue for Business is being renamed. The official Twitter account tweeted: “We will soon launch Verification for Organizations, formerly known as Blue for Business. Today, you can apply for early access via our waitlist here.”

Twitter to add Formatting Features

Elon said, “We will also be adding simple formatting features like bold, underline & font size later this quarter. The goal is to allow people to publish long-form natively on Twitter, rather than forcing them to use another website. Twitter will continue to recommend brevity in tweets.”

Blue users can upload 10 minute video content

Twitter users who enjoy the Blue subscription can upload videos that are 10 minutes long. I was able to upload the first episode of my new Twitter-only podcast, “Gail’s Tesla Podcast.”

Read the Twitter Files

Would you like to read the Twitter Files? They are being continuously updated and archived here on The Twitter Files Archive. “This is where you will find the Twitter threads written by independent journalists like Matt Taibbi. These threads are converted into long-form articles for those not on Twitter or who may have a hard time trying to find the threads.”

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 18, 2023. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.

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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!

Elon Musk is hell bent on changing the status quo. How these 3 books relate to the Twitter Files

Gail Alfar3 Comments

Elon Musk shared an image on Twitter showing the titles of 3 books and the words, “YOU ARE HERE” in the middle. Let’s take a look at these 3 books and discuss how the Twitter files relate.

We’ll also look at Elon’s Twitter poll asking “Elon Musk should” a. Stay out of politics or b. Keep shooting his feet.  57.2% were in favor of “Keep shooting his feet.”

Most people approve of Elon Musk staying political on Twitter.

1. Brave New World, 1932

In a society where the “World Controllers” mastered genetic science to “perfect” the human race, humans are nothing more than ‘Alpha-plus mandarins and epsilon-minus semi-morons’ designed to perform menial tasks and educated to be blissfully content with pre-destined roles. Intellectual curiosity, a sense of history and scientific innovation are frowned upon because they threaten the ruling class’s power over the masses. 

The purpose of all these distractions is to keep people contented so they don’t question the world around them. Society is designed to reject the consumption of old things—like Shakespeare, which is banned. This is another way to promote continuous consumption, because if people value old, outdated things (like old books and higher-quality, longer-lasting items) they won’t have any reason to buy new things.

Things from past eras when society functioned differently often contain deeper meaning and would inspire people to think critically, whereas new forms of entertainment encourage people to focus on the present only. Huxley himself gave advice for resisting this brave new world,

“Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.” 

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, 1958

The Twitter Files are Elon Musk’s way of clearing the decks.  Elon explained it this way,

“I think it’s important to, like if you know if we’re going to be trusted in the future to kind of clear the decks for stuff that’s happened in the past so to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.(laughter from all) Haha, so … is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true?  So far, they all turned out to be true. And if not more true than people thought.” –Elon Musk, All-In Podcast 

Matt Taibbi wrote “Twitter Files: Why Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In” about how once Twitter began rolling over for Congress in 2017, the ending was inevitable: formal surrender to the intelligence community on content moderation.  Matt Taibbi shared,

Matt Taibbi, Twitter Files

2. 1984

When George Orwell published this book in 1949 it was around the same time as Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, House Un-American Activities Committee accused Alger Hiss of spying for the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union sealed off land routes to Berlin. 1984 immerses the reader in a world where a totalitarian government monitors people even in their private lives.  Writing is illegal but main character Winston Smith keeps a diary and desires to beat the system. Everything about Winston’s life is miserable and that includes his job, the food he eats, and the dreary London cityscape he lives in.  In his and all people’s daily lives there are hidden cameras and microphones everywhere, even at home TV screens spewing propaganda must never be turned off.

The signs “Big Brother is watching you” in the book have become synonymous in our culture for the dangers of a government that works to police our thoughts. 

The Twitter Files show just how far our own United States government organizations were willing to go to control the public narrative on elections in the USA and SARS-CoV-2.  Three examples are,

  • By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy 
  • By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed 
  • By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*

You can read about these in this thread shared by David Zweig, author of Invisibles.

David Zweig, Twitter Files

Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an M.D., an economist, and a professor of health policy at Stanford warned about the dangerous impact of lockdowns, especially on children, the working class, and the poor. 

In 2020, he and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then a professor of medicine at Harvard, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford wrote an open letter arguing for “focused protection” for the most medically vulnerable and a return to normal life for the rest of society.  ​​Twitter put Bhattacharya’s account on the Trends Blacklist, which meant that no matter how many likes or views one of his tweets racked up, it could never “trend”; its visibility to users on the platform would be sharply curtailed. You can read more about that in the article, “Twitter’s Secret Blacklists.”

3. Fahrenheit 451

The sci-fi novel Fahrenheit 451’s title refers to the temperature at which paper burns.  The book explores the dangers of a government that tries to control its people through censorship. Reading is illegal and books are burned any time they are discovered.

The main character, Ray, collects books but is betrayed by his own wife. Written in 1953 when people were just starting to buy cathode-ray TV sets.  The book features Ray’s wife Mildred, who watches TV on three screens the size of an entire wall. The programs displayed on the walls are shallow, absurd and pointless. Mildred refers to the characters in her favorite program as her “family” and the actors talk over each other the entire time.  Eventually Mildred gets tired of Ray and turns him in to the authorities and he is forced to burn his books and his house.  451 ends on a hopeful note when Ray escapes the city before a nuclear war begins and joins a group of intellectuals and academics who live in secrecy and memorize books to preserve them.

Lee Fang released Twitter Files Part 8 and wrote about how Twitter Aided the Pentagon in Its Covert Online Propaganda Campaign in an article in the Intercept. Disturbing revelations are surfacing, as Fang wrote, “This appears to align with a major report published in August by online security researchers affiliated with the Stanford Internet Observatory, which reported on thousands of accounts that they suspected to be part of a state-backed information operation, many of which used photorealistic human faces generated by artificial intelligence, a practice also known as “deep fakes.”

Lee Fang, The Twitter Files

The Twitter Files reveal how the government paid millions of dollars to censor information from the public.  Michael Shellenberger shares, “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — “Bu alumni” — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” and adds a screenshot of an email.

Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files

Michael Shellenberger, Twitter Files

CONCLUSION

Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are all science fiction novels that serve to warn people of what can happen if we give up our freedoms and allow others to control what we read or see. Our perception of reality will be skewed and humanity as a whole will be at risk.

For this reason, even if Elon Musk has to “shoot himself in the feet,” it is good that he will keep releasing Twitter Files. The Twitter files are very political because they are important in exposing what the government has been doing behind the scenes at Twitter for years.

Read the Twitter Files (free) on the Twitter Files Archive by Johnna Crider here.

Photo of Austin Texas by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – January 5 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.

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Elon Musk (wearing a Dogecoin t-shirt) talks on Dec 26 episode of All-In Podcast. Image courtesy All-In Podcast.

Twitter Update: Elon Musk talks on the ‘All-In Podcast’ reveals details about Twitter 2.0. and more

Gail AlfarLeave a comment
Elon Musk (wearing a Dogecoin t-shirt) talks on Dec 26 episode of All-In Podcast. Image courtesy All-In Podcast.
Elon Musk (wearing a Dogecoin t-shirt) talks on Dec 26 episode of All-In Podcast. Image courtesy All-In Podcast.

Changes in Twitter are happening fast and it’s hard to keep track of them. That’s why I’m writing this blog, it is to try to capture the historical significance of  Musk‘s purchase of Twitter. I may not go into every single little detail change and I certainly will not write about the daily drama. You already know about The Twitter Files and are most likely very happy they exist. I think Elon‘s recent talk on the all-in podcast had some important information (Davis Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya and David A. Friedberg all asked Elon Musk questions). I’m going to share 12 main points with you in this article.

  • tweets show view counts
  • Twitter’s paid verified blue check
  • Twitter for businesses/organizations
  • Twitter ‘batting average’
  • why and how Twitter workforce was reduced
  • less hate speech, bots and trolls, a new incentive structure emerges
  • Elon’s business model inspires other tech firms
  • Twitter will not monetize hate speech: bots versus trolls 
  • Elon Musk personally called Paul Graham to apologize for Twitter suspension 
  • Twitter to unveil new features in January
  • Chamath asks Elon Musk to share his views on a 2023 recession
  • Elon Musk’s reason for the Twitter files

TWEETS SHOW VIEW COUNTS

Views are more important than likes for most people.  This has been the case on Youtube for years.  Now you will see view counts on your tweets.  Though a tweet may get 20 “likes,” it could have thousands of views. Elon explains,

Elon: The view thing is huge, that’s why I pushed the views. Actually, it’s a lot harder than you think because of the sheer number of transactions per second. I think it sort of requires systemwide on the order of 3 million transactions a second to actually calculate the view. You know, calculate and display the view count FYI for Twitter global, so it’s like 3 million per second. It’s a lot.

Elon went on to describe what it was like to own Twitter for the first six weeks.

Elon: “Well, it’s been quite a roller coaster which, obviously you’ve witnessed and been on the roller coaster as well (speaking to Jason).

I mean, it’s exciting, but I think it sort of has its highs and lows to say the least but overall, it seems to be going in a good direction and we’ve got the expenses reasonably under control so it’s not like in the fast lane of bankruptcy anymore.

And we’re releasing features faster than Twitter‘s history at the same time as containing the costs and reducing the cost structure by a factor of three maybe four.

TWITTER’S PAID VERIFIED BLUE CHECK

The famous Twitter verified Blue Check is something I wrote about in my article “Goodbye Legacy Twitter, Twitter 2.0 is Here.” Elon explains it further,

Elon: The verified, that’s huge! It’s a revenue stream as well as a means of identifying or like knowing that it’s a real person and not a bot or a troll situation. 

TWITTER FOR BUSINESS / ORGANIZATIONS 

Elon: “Having the organizational affiliation was an idea of David’s (Sacks). 

That was great to have organizational affiliation so that you can know that somebody is an actual professor at Stanford or that this particular handle is actually Disney not someone simply putting “I work at Disney” in their bio.

So I think that’s going to be really helpful, it’s really just having detailed and nuanced verification so of all the things that you say you are, are these things validated by other people and organizations?” 

I wrote about Twitter’s organizational verification of Twitter Blue for Business here.

TWITTER BATTING AVERAGE 

Elon: I am a big believer in like you want to look at the net output. So it’s sort of like you know “what’s the batting average?” It’s like baseball.

The point is not that you hit the ball, but it’s like how many home runs you get and like what’s your actual slugging percentage? Its like you’ve got to swing for the fences you’re going to strike out a bit more but we’re going to swing for the fences here at Twitter.

And we’re going to do it quickly, so I think generally like my error rate, and sort of being the chief twit will be less over time but you know in the beginning, we’ll make obviously sort of a lot more mistakes because I’m new to the… like, ‘Hey I just got here man!’ 

So I mean if you look at the actual amount of improvement that’s happened at Twitter in terms of having costs that are not insane and actually shipping product that on balance is good I think that’s great. Like I think we’re actually executing well and getting things done. I think we’ll have fewer pure gaffes in the future. 

WHY AND HOW TWITTER WORKFORCE WAS REDUCED

Chamath: How did you get to your intuition on what the efficient frontier of employees needed to be to make the product better? 

Elon: Well…

David Sacks: I observed part of this, where you basically ask the question, “who here is critical, and who here is exceptional?”

Elon:  Yes, really what the criteria are trying to apply and obviously you’re not gonna be perfect if you’re moving fast and there’s a lot of people you’re talking about here, is anyone who is exceptional with what they do where the role is critical and they have a positive effect on others and they are trusted meaning they put the company’s interests before their own, should stay.  And you know also who is up for working hard. That was not Twitter’s prior culture.

Chamath: Were you surprised that the intersection of that circle and the people that left was basically 25%?  Were you surprised it was that deep or did you think your intuition was like, ‘It’s probably somewhere in here?’

Elon: Well I think you could just stand back and say, without knowing how many employees Twitter has at all and say ‘how many people are really needed to run Twitter?’

Like let’s say you don’t know what the employee count number is at all. How many people are needed to keep the site operational? Like let’s say if -excluding product evolution-  You basically have to keep the servers going and you have to have a customer support function to take down material that is in violation of the law. what’s the minimum number of people?  It’s not like a giant number.

David Sacks: Twitter still has like 2000 people right? 

Elon: Yeah we still have 2000 people it’s not that nothing and there’s actually on the order of almost 5000 contractors. Almost all the what’s called ‘trust and safety work,’  which is like the support functions for the site are done by contractors. 

Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.
Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.

LESS HATE SPEECH, BOTS AND TROLLS, A NEW INCENTIVE STRUCTURE EMERGES

David Sacks: You’re doing a lot more to take down hate speech than the company previously was doing. 

Elon: Yeah, absolutely, hate speech Impressions are down by a third and will get even lower. 

David Friedberg: Maybe you could speak a little bit to what we discovered in those early weeks, which was the incentive. Previously it was to create as many accounts as possible and there were a lot of quick fixes to lowering all these, you know, what people might call ‘bot accounts.” In some cases it was people opening many millions of accounts, but we discovered this very early how easy it was for the tech team to lower the bot count and all the fake accounts. 

Elon: Well, we still have a fair number of bots in the system. The incentive structure, the way Twitter was set up previously was this relentless focus on what they call mDau which is monetizable daily active users, although I would say the monetizable part is dubious.

But at least the things that appeared to be monetized or could be passed off as monetizable daily active users. So this created an incentive to turn a blind eye to fake accounts.

So if the incentive structure is like ‘Maximize the appearance of monetizable daily active users,’ then it’s a strong incentive to pretend that a bot is real, and that’s what happened.

So we’re taking a lot of steps to reduce the bots and troll situation, so many!  And I think you’re seeing that in the usage. It’s now relatively rare to have your replies filled with crypto scams. 

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ELON’S BUSINESS MODEL INSPIRES OTHER TECH FIRMS

David Friedberg explained that there are many companies in Silicon Valley that want to copy Elon Musk’s method of fast iteration. David said he talks to a lot of tech companies who have CEOs and investors and boards, and they’re starting to say ‘Look at what Elon did at Twitter, how can we do something as aggressive as swift as deep?’ David asked Elon if he thinks much about his business model.

Elon: I mean, to be frank, I’m not thinking about it that much, I’m just thinking about like how do we get Twitter to be in a financially healthy place and fix the engine of engineering so we can have a rapid evolution of new products. and so I guess I’m in some ways in sort of a fortunate position where I don’t have to answer, because it’s not public, and we don’t have a board really.

So I can take actions that are drastic and obviously if I make a bunch of mistakes then Twitter won’t succeed and that will be pretty embarrassing and sad.

But as long as the batting average is good, and the wins significantly outweigh the mistakes, then it will be a great future and I think I’m very optimistic about where things are headed.

TWITTER WILL NOT MONETIZE HATE SPEECH AND BOTS VS. TROLLS 

Jason Calacanis asked Elon about freedom of speech and how he feels about it post Twitter acquisition. 

Elon: Well, the general principle is that we should hew close to the law in any given country, so the laws vary quite a lot by country and so I think we should be doing free-speech that’s close to the law and that’s the general principle.

I think there are other things where it’s like for example, if you’re an advertiser you don’t want your Ad -like let’s say- it’s a Family Movie next to some NSFW content, even if that continent is text. There’s more of an allowance for what somebody might call hate speech on the system, but it’s not going to be promoted. Like, we’re not going to be recommending hate speech, haha,  just at the risk of stating the obvious. (pause) 

And we are not going to monetize hate speech or negative speech.  Nor would advertisers want us to. I think it’s going to be a rare product that wants to be near seriously negative stuff.

Elon explains the difference between bots and trolls in relation to Jason’s question about freedom of speech versus freedom of reach. 

Jason: I was going to say you referred to it as freedom of speech, but not reach because this is a very nuanced discussion. Should this stuff be able to hit the trends? 

Elon: It’s certainly possible that some things that will be regarded as hate speech will hit trends, but I think it’s going to be relatively unusual especially as we are doing a better job of controlling the bots and trolls situation. and I do want to emphasize there’s a difference between the bots and the trolls.

Bots are like fully automated accounts, but a troll farm would be where like you’ve got like 100 people in a warehouse somewhere, each with 100 phones so they’re actually humans and they’re going to pass a capture test and they can reply because actually they’re humans. But it’s 10,000 accounts that are obviously not operating as real people.

So, stuff like that can cause things to trend negatively. That’s why I’m a big proponent of having a low-cost verification capability. 

Elon continued, explaining how he applied his way of thinking to Twitter.  You might know this famous quote: 

“Failure is an option here. 
If things are not failing 
you are not innovating.” -Elon Musk

Elon: This is definitely a work in progress.  One of the first things I said, after the acquisition closed was, we’re going to make a bunch of mistakes but then will try to recover from them quickly.  And that’s what we’ve done. I think we’ve generally succeeded in recovering from them quickly and it’s been going pretty well. 

ELON MUSK PERSONALLY CALLED PAUL GRAHAM TO APOLOGIZE FOR TWITTER SUSPENSION 

David Friedberg asked if the Paul Graham and journalist suspensions were mistakes.  “Have you talked publicly about how that all got resolved at the end?”

Elon: Yes, the Paul Graham suspension was definitely a mistake. I actually called Paul Graham to apologize personally for that one.

On the journalist front, I think the journalist suspensions were not a mistake. For some reason, a bunch of journalists thought they were better than everyone else and that if they engaged in doxxing and breaking the rules in various ways that they’re not subject to suspension even though your average citizen is. I think that’s just messed up.

The same rules should apply to people that call themselves journalists as to anyone else on the system. They shouldn’t be sort of, above the rules. for some reason they thought they should be. so that doesn’t make sense, I don’t think that’s right. 

You can read about how Elon Musk‘s family was put at serious risk by multiple journalists purposely exposing his flight plans ahead of time in This is why Twitter suspended several journalists yesterday. by Johnna Crider. 

TWITTER TO UNVEIL NEW FEATURES IN JANUARY

David Friedberg also asked Elon to elaborate on shadow banning and transparency. Jason explained that if there’s going to be a system of shadow banning that the rules should be clear to everybody. 

Elon: Yeah, absolutely, so that’s something I’m committed to and we will probably be able to roll that out in January.

By the way, we are not going to be rolling out a ton of new features over Christmas and New Year’s and stuff so…. the next sort of feature set will probably roll out mid to late January.

And hopefully, in that we can include information about why an account gets suspended or what is called in Twitter visibility filtering ha ha a.k.a. shadow banning. There’s a lot of things that just happen accidentally. What are the rules in the system that are meant to detect that someone is a bot or a troll and then an account is sort of innocently caught up in that.

So ha ha there’s some accounts that were just suspended yesterday because — temporary suspended, they got like 12 hours suspensions because — someone in trust and safety thought they had posted a nude photo of Hunter Biden or something but they haven’t actually done that (laughter) I don’t know, it was just basically a mistake. There was some account that got a 12-hour suspension yesterday in error and they weren’t sure why it happened. It was essentially a mistake with Twitter Customer support that was corrected.

Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.
Elon Musk wearing a Dogecoin Cowboy t-shirt at Twitter HQ with David Sacks. Image courtesy All-In-Podcast.

CHAMATH ASKS ELON MUSK TO SHARE HIS VIEWS ON A 2023 RECESSION

Elon: Well I think it does seem like we’re headed into a recession here in 2023.

The magnitude of that recession is debatable, but I think it’s at least a light to moderate recession potentially on the order of 2009.

So I think it’s wise to prepare for the worst — hope for the best, prepare for the worst — don’t get too adventurous, watch out for margin debt. Like I would really advise people to not have margin debt in a volatile stock market and from a cash standpoint, keep powder dry.

You can get some pretty extreme things happening in a down market. Like Brett Johnson, who is the CFO at SpaceX, was at Broadcom in 2000 and that’s a good company making good products. And he said from peak to trough, I think in less than 12 months Broadcom went down 97%.

So like even if you had a small margin loan there you got crushed. It subsequently recovered to much higher levels but you know if there’s like mass panic in the stock market then you’ve got to be really careful about margin debt.

But this is just, as we know, the economy is cyclic and its somewhat overdue for a recession. And my best guess is that we have sort of stormy times for a year to a year and a half and then things start to … Dawn breaks roughly in Q2 2024.  That’s like my best guess.

Booms don’t last forever but neither do recessions.  

ELON MUSK’S REASON FOR THE TWITTER FILES 

Elon: I think it’s important to, like if you know if we’re going to be trusted in the future to kind of clear the decks for stuff that’s happened in the past so to be totally frank, almost every conspiracy theory that people had about Twitter turned out to be true.(laughter from all) Haha, so … is there a conspiracy theory about Twitter that didn’t turn out to be true?

So far, they all turned out to be true. And if not more true than people thought.

Chamath asked Elon what he thought was the most shocking thing about the Twitter files so far.

Elon: The FBI stuff was pretty intense!

Elon mentioned to the group that the FBI was flagging content to take down that had nothing to do with terrorism. He said, “they literally flagged satire.” 

Elon: Maybe they didn’t get the joke, I don’t know, haha! 

Here’s a link to some of the satire that was flagged by the FBI on Twitter and Michael Shellenburgers Twitter thread that exposed this insidious practice.

You can listen to Elon Musk (set one hour in) on the All-In Podcast here.

CONCLUSION

It’s a big deal that Twitter shows view counts, this helps people to know that they are seen. It’s more significant than likes. If you pay 8/$11, you can have a verified blue check eventually. I think it’s a great idea for people who can afford it. David Sacks came up with a wonderful idea that was implemented called Twitter for Business/Organizations. It helps to validate people’s claims that they represent an organization.

As far as Twitter‘s batting average, Elon Musk explains how in baseball you look at the big picture and not the individual strikeouts, etc. Basically, Twitter has an excellent batting average.

Elon admits that mistakes are made and explains that on deciding the Twitter workforce, it’s important to look at what’s actually needed. Not ‘how many people you should eliminate.’

Twitter’s incentive structure is changing and will not be based on hate speech magnified by bots and trolls.

I was surprised to hear that other tech firms in Silicon Valley are inspired by Elon Musk’s business model of making swift and drastic changes. The fact is, he is greatly respected and admired, even though the mainstream media would have you believe otherwise.

Again, Elon emphasizes that Twitter will not monetize hate speech. When you watch the video, he has an earnest demeanor when he says this, even pausing between his words. Twitter will not monetize hate speech. This is great news.

As far as Twitter’s suspensions of journalists and of Paul Graham, the Paul Graham suspension was an accident and Elon announced that he personally called Paul to apologize. However, the journalists were not accidentally suspended because they doxxed his family’s private location. This put his family’s life at risk. This is something normal people could not do, and so journalists should be held to the same level of accountability as regular people.

Elon mentioned that new features will be unveiled in January. We’re all looking forward to that. Elon believes we are heading towards a recession and he shares his information in the podcast and you can read about that above if you’re interested. Basically, Elon reminds us that the dawn will break after the stormy times. And he thinks that time will happen roughly in Q2 2024, that’s his best guess.

Lastly, Elon chuckles over the FBI flagging parody accounts in the Twitter files. I agree it is pretty hilarious that a parody account would actually be the reason for the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The interview ended with Elon giving up his seat to Michael Schellenberger, the writer who released the Twitter files on the FBI.

Austin Texas Photo courtesy Jeremy Doddridge on Unsplash
Austin Texas Photo courtesy Jeremy Doddridge on Unsplash

Fun Sidestory: I had the opportunity to get to know some of the Dogecoin community including Gary Lachance. I met Gary in Austin and I was excited to find out there were T-shirts with the Doge drone show from Cyber Rodeo and Texas Rodeo Doge shirts. Later when I was invited to meet Elon Musk at Giga Texas, I asked Gary if he had any extra shirts. Eventually, I met a friend of Gary’s in Austin who passed me a box of shirts and a ceramic tile. Elon received the Rodeo Doge and Drone Doge t-shirts and was appreciative and grateful for them. It’s cool to see Elon wearing the Rodeo Doge t-shirt.

Gail Alfar, author. Exclusive to What’s Up Twitter – December 29, 2022. All Rights Reserved. My goal as an author is to support Twitter 2.0 and Elon Musk in both making lives better on earth for humans and becoming a space-fairing civilization.

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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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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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