(San Francisco) Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has launched the transformation of the social network at a rapid pace, tweeting pell-mell announcements and jokes, while the departures of senior officials are becoming clearer.
Updated yesterday at 8:22 p.m.
He clarified his first major project on Tuesday: an $8 per month subscription for users wishing to have their account certified as authentic.
“The current system of lords and peasants, with those who have the blue tick and those who don’t, is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8 a month,” said the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who acquired Twitter on Thursday.
The new chief executive wants to merge Twitter Blue — a subscription to paid features for $5 a month — and the ability to have his identity verified and certified.
Currently, only certain profiles can request this token of authenticity, including governments, companies, media, political, cultural or sports personalities, etc.
Subscribers will have other advantages: their tweets will appear in priority, they will be able to post longer videos, they will be exposed to “half the advertising” and will have access to free articles on news sites “ready to work”. with us,” said Elon Musk.
The new offer should help the platform fight against fake accounts and diversify its sources of income. Its business model is 90% dependent on advertising.
“Let them go to hell”
But the very idea of having to pay to have your account certified has drawn a lot of criticism.
“If everyone buys a verification badge, there will be a problem with the credibility of the information,” tweeted Pranay Pathole, an engineer fan of the multi-billionaire.
“Appealing to Twitter users to make more money may be the right strategy, but verification isn’t the place to pay,” commented Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.
“The certification is supposed to ensure the authenticity of accounts and conversations on the platform, it is not a premium tool,” she added.
The richest man in the world has repeated since the start of this eventful acquisition that he wanted to strengthen freedom of expression in this “public square” essential to democracy, and that profitability was not his priority.
But he has been trying since Thursday to reassure worried advertisers.
On Friday, automaker General Motors announced that it is temporarily removing its ads from Twitter. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) for its part recalled the importance for brands that “toxic content” be removed.
According to the specialized site The Verge, Elon Musk first considered raising the price of the monthly subscription to 20 dollars.
“Twenty dollars a month to keep my blue badge?” Fuck them, they should pay me instead. If it’s set up, I’m out,” bestselling author Stephen King tweeted on Monday.
Elon Musk, who renamed himself in the bio of his account “Twitter hotline operator”, had replied by suggesting eight dollars.
“A farce and a disgrace”
According to employees, the engineers concerned are expected to work tirelessly to overhaul the subscription by November 7, and have been informed that their jobs are at stake.
And according to the Bloomberg news agency, some employees no longer have access to content moderation tools that are used to penalize users who spread false information or hate speech.
Twitter did not respond to requests from AFP.
The whimsical entrepreneur has taken control of the influential social network, calling on Tesla engineers to help him.
He fired the board, and also several executives, without official confirmation.
Vijaya Gadde, head of legal affairs, and Jay Sullivan, head of product, removed all mention of Twitter from their profiles. The account of Nick Caldwell, the head of engineering, indicates “former manager at Twitter”.
“The ongoing dismissal process is a farce and a disgrace. Tesla henchmen make decisions about people they know nothing about except the number of lines of code produced. This is complete nonsense,” Taylor Leese, the director of an engineering team who says he was fired, tweeted on Sunday.
Sarah Personette, the director of operations in charge of relations with advertisers, announced her resignation, as did Dalana Brand, who took care of diversity within the Californian group.