The new Twitter is emerging.
Since finalizing the $44 billion deal giving him control of the social network on October 27, Elon Musk got to work right away.
He enlisted the help of relatives and loyalists to reflect on the first steps that will allow him to make his mark on the microblogging website without delay.
While Twitter does not generate as much profit as YouTube and Facebook, the platform plays a central role in public discourse. It is a kind of agora. Musk himself defines Twitter as the town square of our time.
The future of Twitter is currently arousing passions on all sides.
The general public and political circles want to know what Musk, who defines himself as a "free speech absolutist," will decide on the content management policy. Basically which tweets will be acceptable on the platform.
To respond to this, the billionaire has set up a council which will decide on the reactivation of banned accounts, including that of former President Donald Trump. Musk did not give more details on the composition of this council or when it would convene.
Price of Blue Will Increase
The other big question which the tech tycoon is trying to answer is how to make money with Twitter, which has cost him dearly. Various options are currently being tested. Now, a decision seems to have been made: users will have to pay for the verification of their accounts. Currently, the service, which uses small blue badges to indicate that a person's or brand's account is genuine, is free.
Specifically, verification is expected to be part of Twitter Blue, a paid plan that offers additional features for heavy Twitter users. It now costs $4.99 per month and offers additional options like the ability to organize your Twitter feed, to cancel tweets with typos, or to set a non-fungible token (NFT) as your profile picture.
Blue badges, used mostly by brands, governments, celebrities or journalists, will be part of the paid features starting next week. Subscribers will now have to pay to get them.
For the billionaire, the decision to increase the price has been made. The question now is by how much. The Verge reported on October 30 that Musk plans to quadruple Blue's price to $19.99. Musk just confirmed that he will increase the price a little less. He wants to raise it to $8. So he said in a comment to an angry post by science fiction and horror author Stephen King.
King posted a message on October 31 saying that he was angry that Musk wanted to quadruple Blue's price. He threatened to quit Twitter if that was the case.
"$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron," King said.
Musk then responded by explaining that the reason he was considering raising the price was because the platform couldn't just rely on advertisers.
"We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers," the tech tycoon commented.
He then added: "How about $8?"
'Defeat the Bots'
He promised to further explain the logic behind this decision which will undoubtedly cause a lot of dissatisfaction from a large number of users.
"I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls," Musk said.
For months, the serial entrepreneur has been denouncing the presence of fake accounts or spam bots on Twitter. He explained that one of the reasons he would acquire Twitter was to solve this problem of fake accounts often created by artificial intelligence and which, according to experts, contribute to the rapid spread of hate speech and misinformation.
Musk said on October 30 that work was underway on the verification process. However, how paid verification would solve the problem of spam accounts is unclear.
The decision to increase the price of Blue as a new source of income is generating strong reactions on social media. Even those, who are in favor of a price increase, believe that it should be below what Musk wants to impose.
"How about $6.90?" asked Sawyer Merritt, a Tesla investor and Musk fan. "$6.90/monthly. $4.20/month price if they pay for a full year up front."
"@elonmusk not sure if you have seen the poll. $20 is way too much. If you want to start making money from verification should charge $6-$9. You will make more in long term as you will gain volume," said another Twitter user.
"okay, here is the number: $6.90," posted one user.
