The new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has announced that Twitter will soon add the ability to attach long-term text to tweets, and this will lead to creators’ monetization for all forms of content creators monetization for all forms of content.
He explained that this was to put an end to the absurdity of notepad screenshots. The announcement was made on Sunday 6th of November, 2022.
Elon Musk made known his mission for Twitter which he says, ” Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.”
He warned that any Twitter handle engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying parody would be permanently suspended.
Previously, Twitter issued a warning before the suspension, but it has now declared that while rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning. This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up for Twitter Blue.
“Also, any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.” Elon musk said.
The platform has also created a feature called “Photos, Videos and GIFs in one tweet”; this feature allows users to add multiple types of media to a single tweet. Tye developer announced that this feature is still being tested.
Read also: Twitter To Charge $20 Monthly For Account Verification
Comedian Kathy Griffin was banned on Twitter for impersonating Elon Musk
Suspension of handles started after a US comedian, Kathy Griffin impersonated Elon Musk on the platform.
The comedian’s account was banned immediately for impersonating someone else without flagging them as parodies. She changed her account name to match that of Elon Musk’s name. The comedian tweeted “After much spirited discussion with the females in my life. I’ve decided that voting blue for their choice is only right (They’re also sexy females, btw.) #VoteBlueToProtectWomen.”
Kathy Griffin was fined eight dollars ($8) to get her Twitter account back.
Reactions To Twitter Monetization
There have been different reactions to this announcement. While some rejoice at the new update as this is an opportunity for extra income, others disagree with the plan.
A Twitter user, Amy said, ” Twitter has literally been about fleeting thoughts, posted as minimally as possible. Are we leaving this concept and going towards a microblogging approach? I feel like this takes away the whole point of Twitter for the average person and just benefit businesses and public figures.”
Another Twitter user, @ DadRevenue tweeted, ” the following tweets are essential to the purpose of Twitter and how it works. By looking at a number of examples, we can see that Short-Form tweets are by and large the 1/1272.”
Power Shift In Twitter
After the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk last month, he immediately sacked four of the company’s most senior executives and began layoff off employees.
He then installed a small council of lieutenants to access the company and begin implementing his vision.
This group of lieutenants includes his personal lawyer, his chief of staff, a couple of investors and a former Twitter executive who left the company some years ago. Their names are Jason Calacanis, Jared Birchall, Alex Spiro, David Sacks and Sriram Krishnan.
There’s no stated period of operation for this group, but their task is to keep the company running and increase its revenue.
Elon Musk thereafter discussed the company’s content moderation plans and sent out orders to employees to begin working on a paid verification feature.
They also met with advertisers who provide Twitter with most of its revenue and have shown concern over how Musk might run the company.
Elon Musk remains the world’s richest man with a net worth of around $200 billion, and has long been an active social network user. As the owner of Twitter, he refers to himself as “Chief Twit”, which was confirmed last Monday in the company’s financial filing that he was the official chief executive.
Elon Musk owns several other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. As Twitter’s new owner, he exercises tremendous power to steer the company, from changing the site’s approach to content moderation to enacting dramatic cuts to Twitter’s workforce to pushing users to pay for using the site.