Zebeth Media Solutions

Social

Elon Musk’s Twitter already looks grim for the LGBTQ community • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Elon Musk, lgbtq, Social, TwitterNo Comments on Elon Musk’s Twitter already looks grim for the LGBTQ community • ZebethMedia

He’s only owned Twitter for a couple of days, but Elon Musk has already undermined his credibility on some of social media’s most vexing problems, all while displaying a disturbing inclination toward anti-LGBTQ views. The world’s most credulous billionaire couldn’t help but respond to a tweet over the weekend from Hillary Clinton denouncing Republican support for extremist conspiracies that inspire real-world violence. “The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories,” Clinton wrote. “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result.” Last week, a man broke into the San Francisco home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and assaulted her husband with a hammer. The assailant, 42-year-old David DePape, shared antisemitic conspiracy theories, election denialism, screeds against transgender people and violent threats to journalists in the months leading up to the break in. Musk, who now owns the platform, quickly waded in with a conspiracy of his own, pointing Clinton to a website with a track record of publishing outlandish and easily-debunked misinformation. The story Musk shared was headlined “The Awful Truth: Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning.” The story’s supporting evidence is that DePape has connections to the nudist community and “Castro Nudists are a group of really radical gay male prostitutes that parade around naked with c–k rings.” The conspiracy hinges on a since-corrected early KTVU report that DePape was in his underwear when arrested. “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk tweeted alongside the link to the Santa Monica Observer, which once claimed Hillary Clinton had died and been replaced by a body double. By Monday, Musk had deleted the tweet and the Santa Monica Observer topped its story with an update noting police reports that Pelosi did not know DePape. Musk’s ongoing embrace of far-right conspiracies is alarming considering that he now owns the company. Just last week, he sought to reassure advertisers that his version of Twitter wouldn’t become a “free-for-all hellscape,” a promise that quickly rang untrue given Musk’s bizarre impulse to share obvious political misinformation. It’s not just his interest in homophobic conspiracies about Paul Pelosi’s fictional gay lover. Last week, Musk took time out of his day to reply to the daughter of academic and self-help author Jordan Peterson, who was suspended from the platform for deadnaming trans actor Elliott Page and calling Page’s surgeon a “criminal physician” over the summer. Anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022 In the reply to Peterson’s daughter, Musk said that “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail,” dismissing the seriousness of Peterson’s inexplicable attacks on Page and inviting more transphobia on the platform in the process. Twitter’s current rules on hateful conduct prohibit “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals,” a policy that was added in 2018 to protect trans people from harassment. It’s hard to imagine that policy sticking around for long under Musk. Peterson’s Twitter account was frozen until he deletes the offending tweet, but that’s not likely to happen — Peterson dramatically said he would “rather die” than take it down. YouTube demonetized some of Peterson’s videos back in August for deadnaming Page and declaring that gender-affirming medical care for trans people is “Auschwitz and Gulag-level wrong,” likening the often life-saving interventions to a “Nazi medical experiment.” Prior to acquiring Twitter, Musk also made it clear that his Twitter would be a safe home for antisemitism. After Instagram restricted Kanye West’s account for invoking antisemitic tropes and accusing Sean “Diddy” Combs of being controlled by “the Jewish people,” Musk warmly welcomed West back to Twitter. West hopped over to the platform, promising a fresh antisemitic rant that would go “death [sic] con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” a tweet that violated Twitter’s rules. In the 12 hours after Elon Musk closed the deal, instances of anti-Black racial slurs on the platform also shot up by 500%, according to an organization that studies social media activity. The flood of racism was notable enough that Twitter’s head of Safety and Integrity weighed in, though Musk’s recent behavior undermined his hopeful message that the team would continue working “to make Twitter safe and welcoming for everyone.” Over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of accounts post a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms. To give you a sense of scale: More than 50,000 Tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts. — Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) October 30, 2022 Musk’s superficial grasp of content moderation’s complexities and his apparent eagerness to enable homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism on Twitter do not bode well for a platform that’s long been a nexus of harassment for many of its users. Potential cuts to Twitter’s workforce, including its trust and safety teams, could set back recent product and policy changes designed to make Twitter a safer place. Based on the tone he’s setting, it looks unlikely that Musk’s Twitter will be very interested in protecting the communities that bear the brunt of targeted abuse on the platform. Musk’s own history of amplifying misinformation and even directing his own harassment campaign at a now-former Twitter policy executive speak volumes about what’s in store. “We are very concerned about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter,” the Human Rights Campaign wrote in a statement Friday. “This isn’t about censorship or discrimination of ideas – it is about what kind of company they want to be and what kind of world they want to shape.”

Read More

Elon Musk tells Europe that Twitter will comply with bloc’s illegal speech rules • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Digital Services Act, Elon Musk, Government & Policy, online regulation, Social, thierry-breton, TwitterNo Comments on Elon Musk tells Europe that Twitter will comply with bloc’s illegal speech rules • ZebethMedia

Surprise! Elon Musk’s tenure at Twitter is already shaping up to be confusing and contradictory. Whether this dynamic ends up being more self-defeating for him and his new company than harmful for the rest of humanity and human civilization remains tbc. On the one hand, a fresh report today suggests Musk is preparing major staff cuts: 25%, per the Washington Post. (He denied an earlier report by the same newspaper, last week — suggesting he’d told investors he planned to slash costs by liquidating a full 75% of staff — so how radical a haircut he’s planning is still unclear, even as reports of fired staffers are trickling onto Twitter.) But, also today, Reuters reported that Twitter’s new CEO — the self-styled “Chief Twit” — reached out to the European Union last week to assure local lawmakers that the platform will comply with an incoming flagship reboot of the bloc’s rules on digital governance around illegal content. A move that will, self-evidently, demand a beefed up legal, trust and safety function inside Twitter if Musk is to actually deliver compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) — at a time when Musk is sharpening the knives to cut headcount. DSA compliance for a platform like Twitter will likely require a whole team in and of itself. A team that should be starting work ASAP. The comprehensive EU framework for regulating “information society services” and “intermediary services” across the bloc spans 93 articles and 156 recitals — and is due to start applying as soon as next year for larger platforms. (It’s February 17, 2024, for all the rest.) Penalties for violations of the incoming regime can scale up to 6% of global annual turnover — which, on Twitter’s full year revenue for 2021, implies potential fines of up to a few hundred million dollars apiece. So there should be incentive to comply to avoid such costly regulatory risk. (Er, unless Musk’s strategy for “saving” Twitter involves dismantling the business entirely and running its revenue into the ground.) Yet — in another early step — one of Musk’s first moves as owner of the social media platform was to fire a number of senior execs, including Vijaya Gadde, its former head of Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety. Musk had been critical of her role in a decision by Twitter, back in October 2020, to — initially — limit the distribution of a controversial New York Post article reporting on emails and other data supposedly originating on a laptop belonging to U.S. president Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. The action led to accusations that Twitter was censoring journalism and demonstrating a pro-Democrat bias, even though the company subsequently rowed back on the restrictions and revised its policies. Targeted harassment Musk waded into the saga earlier this year with a tweet that branded the Post’s story “truthful” and dubbed Twitter’s actions “incredibly inappropriate.” He also doubled down shortly afterward by retweeting a meme targeting Gadde by name — which led to a vicious pile-on by his followers that prompted former Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo, to tweet at Musk publicly to ask why he was encouraging targeted harassment of the Twitter exec. Put another way, a former Twitter CEO felt forced to call out the (now current) CEO of Twitter for encouraging targeted harassment of a senior staffer — who also happens to be a woman and POC. To say that this bodes badly for Twitter’s compliance with EU rules that are intended to ensure platforms act responsibility toward users — and drive accountability around how they are operated — is an understatement. what’s going on? You’re making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats. — dick costolo (@dickc) April 27, 2022 While the EU’s DSA is most focused on governance rules for handling illegal content/goods and so on — that is, rather than tackling the grayer area of online disinformation, election interference, “legal but harmful” stuff (abuse, bullying, etc.), and such, areas where the EU has some other mechanisms/approaches in the works — larger platforms can be designated as a specific category (called VLOPs, or very large online platforms) and will then have a set of additional obligations they must comply with. These extra requirements for VLOPs include carrying out mandatory risk assessments in areas such as whether the application of their terms and conditions and content moderation policies have any negative effects on “civic discourse, electoral processes and public security,” for example; and a follow-on requirement to mitigate any risks — by putting in place “reasonable, proportionate and effective mitigation measures, tailored to the specific systemic risks identified” (including where risks are impacting users’ fundamental rights, so stuff like respect for human dignity and equality; nondiscrimination; respect for diversity, etc., among other core rights listed in the EU charter). The implication is a VLOP would face major challenges under the DSA if it was to ignore risks to fundamental rights flowing from, say, a decision to apply a “free speech absolutist” approach to content moderation, as Musk has, at times, claimed is his preference (but — ever mercurial — he’s also said that, as Twitter CEO, he would comply with all legal requirements, everywhere in the world they apply). Whether Twitter will be classed as a VLOP is one (now) very burning question for EU citizens and lawmakers. The Commission hasn’t specified either way — but internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, has (at least) heavily implied Musk’s Twitter will face meaningful checks and balances under the DSA. Which suggests it will be designated and regulated as a VLOP. Hence Breton’s quick schooling of Musk last week — when, in response to Musk’s “free speech” base-inflaming “the bird is freed” tweet, the commissioner pointedly rejoined: “In Europe the bird will fly by our [EU] rules.” Musk did not respond publicly to Breton’s schooling at the time. But, according to a Reuters report today, he reached out to the Commission to “assure” it the platform will

Read More

With board’s dissolution, Elon is ‘sole director’ of Twitter • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments on With board’s dissolution, Elon is ‘sole director’ of Twitter • ZebethMedia

Elon Musk is now lord of the manor over at Twitter after the board of directors was dissolved as part of the merger agreement. While the state of affairs likely isn’t permanent, it does mean that as owner, director, and “Chief Twit,” he has what amounts to ultimate power to hire, fire, and change the social media platform. In an SEC filing, the company detailed some of the many changes having to do with the controversial purchase of the platform by Musk: [A]s a result of the consummation of the Merger, Mr. Musk became the sole director of Twitter. In accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement, effective as of the effective time of the Merger, the following persons, who were directors of Twitter prior to the effective time of the Merger, are no longer directors of Twitter: Bret Taylor, Parag Agrawal, Omid Kordestani, David Rosenblatt, Martha Lane Fox, Patrick Pichette, Egon Durban, Fei-Fei Li and Mimi Alemayehou. You may recognize some or all of those names, and certainly the Twitter board was quite a who’s-who of Silicon Valley. But their watch is finished and the deal they squabbled over is complete. This is not some unprecedented move in a private takeover of a public company, just a part of the process. The board of directors represented the former shareholders and now those shares are owned by someone else. It’s not rare for a board to be cleared this way, and new ones installed as a decision-making and advisory body adjacent to company leadership. That said, because examples of private takeovers at this scale are so few, let alone examples with comparable context, it’s difficult to say with any confidence what would be “normal.” The result, at all events, is that right now Twitter has what amounts to a dictator, and that dictator is reportedly using that power to enact sweeping changes like company-wide cuts and charging for verification. How Musk intends to structure leadership at Twitter is still something of a mystery, probably as much to him as anyone else, but as sole director it’s pretty much his prerogative. It may be that part of the complex and risky financing of the deal entails the installation of certain persons (or indeed kingdoms) in positions of real power and responsibility. Of course Musk is not doing all this alone — he has reportedly surrounded himself with various cronies and operators who, though lacking any actual power as yet, are no doubt doing their utmost to influence the sole director.

Read More

Mastodon’s microblogging app saw a record number of downloads after Musk’s Twitter takeover • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, mastodon, open source, Social, TwitterNo Comments on Mastodon’s microblogging app saw a record number of downloads after Musk’s Twitter takeover • ZebethMedia

There are signs of a small but growing Twitter exodus underway following Elon Musk’s closure of the deal to buy the social media platform last Thursday. While many Twitter users are taking a wait-and-see approach and may not have fully deleted their accounts at this time, a sizable number of people are currently checking out Twitter alternatives. One of those alternatives is Mastodon, a decentralized social network that gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, the day after the Musk Twitter takeover completed. And this weekend, the official Mastodon mobile app saw a record number of downloads as more people fleeing Twitter began to seek out a new online home. Mastodon, to be clear, is not a new platform. The free and open-source microblogging service debuted in March 2016, offering a different approach to online social networking. Similar to Twitter, you can follow other users and create posts that can be liked and retweeted (or “tooted,” in Mastodon lingo), use hashtags, share media, and more. But unlike Twitter, Mastodon is a distributed social network where users sign up on individual servers, or nodes, each with its own theme, rules, language, and moderation policy. For instance, the most popular server currently is mastodon.social, touting 817,219 users. A Japanese server pawoo.net is just behind that with some 766,399 users. Users can generally view content and interact with people on other servers, with the exception of any servers in the “fediverse” — the group of interconnected, or federated, servers — that their own server admin has banned. Mastodon works on the web or mobile, including through native mobile apps. In addition to the main Mastodon mobile client, there’s a long list of third-party clients to choose from, too, with names like Tootle, Metatext, Mast, tooot, Toot!, Mastoot, Twidere X, Mercury for Mastodon, Tootoise, Tootter for Mastodon, Stella, and more. There were already signs last week that Mastodon was benefiting from the chaos and concern that’s accompanied the chaotic change in Twitter’s ownership. Looks like #Mastodon is trending on Twitter as more and more people are announcing their new profiles. Welcome to the better social media that does not belong to a single company and cannot be sold, welcome to the fediverse! pic.twitter.com/75pugCA0si — Mastodon (@joinmastodon) October 27, 2022   On Friday, the hashtag #mastodon began trending and many people were tweeting #TwitterMigration as they prepared to make the shift to the open-source service. Even in advance of the Twitter sale, some were checking out Mastodon, noted Eugen Rochko, Mastodon’s founder and lead developer. He said that 18,000 people signed up for Mastodon accounts in the week leading up to the Twitter sale (Oct. 20 to Oct. 27), Wired reported at the time. On Friday, Mastodon shared that number had increased by quite a bit: over 70,000 people signed up for a Mastodon account on that day alone (Oct. 28). (Rochko later noted the figure was actually 70,849, up from 10,801 the day prior.) This influx of new users also helped boost the Mastodon mobile app. As of Friday afternoon, the app had jumped to No. 38 in the Social Networking category on the U.S. App Store, data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower indicated. This was the app’s highest rank since April 27, 2022 when it had ranked No. 37 — shortly after Musk made his initial offer to buy Twitter, prompting the first Twitter exodus. The highest rank the app had ever seen then was No. 31 on April 26, 2022. That’s since changed, Sensor Tower tells us. The app has now moved up to No. 21 in the Social Networking category on the U.S. App Store, topping its earlier high. It also saw the most installs ever in a single day on Saturday, Oct. 29, with 34,000 new downloads across both iOS and Android that day. And, over the past three days (Oct. 28-30) the app has seen around 91,000 new installs, Sensor Tower says. That’s up 658% when compared with the 12,000 installs from the prior three days (Oct. 25-27). It’s also a sizable chunk of the lifetime installs the app has seen to date, which now total 489,000 across iOS and Android. Germany is Mastodon’s largest market with 37% of installs, followed by the U.S. with 19% and Japan with 7%. However, despite breaking records, Mastodon’s mobile app hasn’t yet broken into the Top Overall iPhone apps on the U.S. App Store. That could be because Mastodon has such a long tail of third-party clients that some app downloads from new users are being siphoned away from the main app and directed elsewhere. For example, the Mastodon app MetaText jumped up 14 positions in its ranking in the Social Networking category while Mercury moved up 3 ranks. Neither are all that sizable, though, with Social Networking category ranks of 469 and 1,295, respectively.  There’s no doubt this rapid growth in Mastodon app downloads is directly tied to the Musk Twitter takeover. However, Mastodon’s growth isn’t the only sign that some Twitter users are abandoning the platform. Twitter developer partner Tweepsmap, a Twitter analytics provider, saw a slightly higher than usual drop in the number of “unfollows” on the platform among a sample size of 400,000 Twitter users on Friday, Oct. 28 — or about 30% higher than the usual Friday average. This could signal a somewhat higher number of users were deactivating their accounts than is usual, leading to them “unfollowing” other users as a result. The only other pattern Tweepsmap could detect was that liberal-leaning accounts had higher than usual losses, with a follower drop of < 0.2% — a decline that’s not significant in the grand scheme of things, but also not entirely negligible, either, the company told us. That would likely correlate with the types of Twitter users who are looking to exit a Musk-led platform, but it’s still small enough of an exit to not really hurt Twitter at present. In the meantime, Rochko posted that he’s purchased more powerful hardware to upgrade Mastodon’s

Read More

I’m not really in the mood to finance your vanity project • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in EC Media, Elon Musk, Social, TwitterNo Comments on I’m not really in the mood to finance your vanity project • ZebethMedia

News that Elon Musk’s interim Twitter leadership is considering charging users for verification on its platform has caused no end of consternation among current holders of the service’s well-known blue check marks. Complaints have arisen about price (potentially too high) and value offered (potentially too low), among other concerns. It’s also fair to note that before the Musk deal was completed, Twitter had already begun to experiment with subscription-based services targeting its most active users. I am well aware of those efforts as a Twitter addict; I signed up for Twitter Blue and continue to pay for it. (Though it appears to be only a modest revenue driver to date.) The calculus of my support of Twitter, however, has changed. Before the Musk transaction, Twitter’s product cadence had picked up pace. Therefore, buying a cheap pass to beta features, which supported the company where I have long made my digital home, seemed reasonable. Sure, simping for a public company is about as sensical as pining after a celebrity, but what can I say? I’m human. Twitter started to put much-demanded features behind its low paywall, including an edit button. For some folks, that was a draw. However, it felt like Twitter wasn’t taking existing capabilities and putting them in a walled garden. Instead, the service was making new stuff aimed at a more niche audience, charging for incremental functionality. That did not bother me in the least. Now, however, Twitter is controlled by a single person instead of, I presume, owned by a good chunk of its users through index funds. Even more, it is largely owned by one person who took on quite a lot of debt to finance the deal. Encumbered with more obligations than before, Twitter is likely in a hurry to boost the rate at which it generates positive cash flow to service those new debts.

Read More

These founders landed early checks by being savvy about social media • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Campfire, couplet coffee, EC TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, Social, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, VentureNo Comments on These founders landed early checks by being savvy about social media • ZebethMedia

On first blush, founders building a coffee brand, a social networking app, and a fintech-focused venture fund wouldn’t appear to have much in common. But at ZebethMedia Disrupt, the founders, together on stage, credited their early success in raising venture capital to their use of social media platforms. It’s an interesting and increasingly necessary ingredient. While one founder, Nik Milanović, who launched a small fintech-focused media company and an associated venture fund, happens to enjoy the kind of profile that VCs tend to notice (Stanford grad, biz dev experience at Google, white), the checks the other two founders raised are something of a statistical anomaly. Gefen Skolnick, the founder of coffee brand Couplet Coffee, is a woman; just 2.4% of venture dollars flowed toward women-led companies in 2021. For a Black founder like Josh Ogundu, whose app Campfire invites users to create and share 30-second audio stories associated with pictures on their phones, the odds of getting a check were an even more abysmal 1.3% in 2021. (For Latin and Black women founders, the chances of receiving venture funding in 2021 were closer to zero.) Though Ogundu and Skolnick made the point that going to esteemed schools and logging time at brand-name companies helped even the playing field (he attended both Michigan State and the University of Southern California and had a stint at TikTok; she attended UCLA and worked at Tesla, among other internships), all three suggested that savvy use of social media can do more than make it easier to connect with investors and customers — it can keep a founder and their brand relevant and accessible, too.

Read More

Twitter’s app has only generated $6.4M in consumer spending to date • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Apps, Elon Musk, op-ed, Social, Twitter, verificationNo Comments on Twitter’s app has only generated $6.4M in consumer spending to date • ZebethMedia

Elon Musk has a new plan to generate revenue for Twitter. Reportedly, the social media company’s new owner intends to revamp the Twitter Blue premium subscription, currently an optional $4.99 per month for a handful of perks, by upping the price to $19.99 per month while giving subscribers the coveted verification badge. While this plan is problematic for a number of reasons — buying verification devalues it, removing verification from existing users who can’t pay, like journalists and various notable figures, will aid the spread of misinformation — it’s also worth noting that Twitter Blue as it stands today has not been a success. The subscription itself is certainly due for a revamp — just not a completely misguided, ill-thought-out revamp like this. Launched in June 2021, initially in Canada and Australia, before expanding to the U.S. and New Zealand that November, Twitter Blue was meant to help the social media platform diversify its revenue and reduce its reliance on advertisers, who today account for more than 90% of Twitter’s total revenue. The idea with Blue has been to entice Twitter’s heaviest users — its power users — to pay a small monthly fee in order to gain access to a handful of exclusive features such as tools to organize bookmarks, the ability to read news articles without ads, custom icons and navigation, early access to new features, a way to quickly fix a typo, and most recently, the long-awaited Edit button. But so far, none of these options have offered a strong enough incentive to generate significant revenue for Twitter. If anything, Twitter users believe the Edit button should be a feature of the site itself, not an exclusive, paid-only option. And they’ve protested this decision by collectively not jumping to sign up for Twitter Blue, app store data indicates. What’s more, Twitter has oddly chosen at times to roll out new, in-demand features to non-subscribers first instead of to Twitter Blue’s paying customer base, as had been promised. For example, when Twitter this month expanded access to its experimental Status feature, which lets users tag tweets with a sentiment like “Don’t @ me,” “spoiler alert,” “breaking news,” and more, it didn’t include the option in Twitter Blue. That meant paid Twitter users had to watch as a random subset of Twitter’s user base, including many free users, got to play with a fun, new addition to Twitter they couldn’t use. A truly bizarre choice on the company’s part, and one that misunderstands what its power users value. The lack of demand for Twitter Blue can be seen in the insignificant amount of revenue it’s managed to pull in to date. According to data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, Twitter’s mobile app has only seen approximately $6.4 million in worldwide consumer spending to date. By comparison, Twitter’s annual revenue in 2021 was $5.08 billion. In the second quarter of this year, Twitter generated $1.18 billion in revenue, $1.08 billion of which was from advertising. (Twitter also generates revenue from data licensing and other sources, so even the difference between these two figures can’t be chalked up to subscriptions alone). Of course, it’s impossible to tell from third-party data exactly how much consumer spending in the Twitter app was directed at Twitter Blue specifically, as Twitter also offered in-app purchases for “Ticketed Spaces” — that is, paid entry into a special event as a part of Twitter’s live audio streaming product. But we can estimate that Ticketed Spaces revenue was only a small fraction of that total, if anything at all, as Twitter found that feature had seen so little adoption it decided to shut it down last month, Twitter recently confirmed to ZebethMedia. Sensor Tower additionally noted that the Twitter Blue monthly subscription was the top in-app purchase, indicating that likely the bulk of the in-app consumer spending comes from Blue subscribers, not those paying for the virtually unused Ticketed Spaces feature. Twitter Blue’s lack of traction isn’t just a symptom of an app with a small user base. Year to date, the company has seen 153 million worldwide installs, slightly down by 3% over the 158 million seen during the same period last year (Jan. 1 through Oct. 27), Sensor Tower said. As of Q2 2022, Twitter had 237.8 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs), it said during earnings. Meanwhile, another social app with a similar subscription model is far outpacing Twitter Blue, despite being live for only a few months. Snapchat also launched its first premium subscription offering this year with Snapchat+. Like Twitter Blue, the $3.99 per month Snapchat+ subscription (cheaper than Blue) is aimed at the app’s power users and offers its own set of exclusive perks. Snapchat+ subscribers today can change the app icon, see who rewatched their Stories, pin someone as their ‘Best Friend,’ change the visibility duration of their Stories, use custom notification sounds, and much more. It’s a good comp for how a social subscription offering could work, if fairly successful. As of Q3 2022, Snapchat+ reached over 1.5 million paying subscribers across more than 170 countries, the company said. Following its June 29, 2022 launch, Sensor Tower data indicates Snapchat+ has generated a little more than $28 million in worldwide consumer spending. It’s also attracting users who are willing to commit to paying for longer periods of time. The Snapchat+ monthly subscription is the top in-app purchase, but the second most popular option is the annual subscription, the firm noted. In other words, in roughly 4 months’ time, Snapchat+ pulled in more than quadruple the revenue that Twitter Blue has over a 17-month period. Even accounting for the fact that Snapchat has 363 million daily active users to Twitter’s 237.8 million (though yes, a slightly different metric as Twitter only counts users who can view its ads — mDAUs, not DAUs), it’s clear that Twitter Blue has not been a smashing success. So, in a sense, Musk would not be wrong to suggest that Twitter Blue needs a

Read More

Elon Musk’s plan to charge for Twitter verification will be a misinformation nightmare • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in Elon Musk, Jason Calacanis, Social, TwitterNo Comments on Elon Musk’s plan to charge for Twitter verification will be a misinformation nightmare • ZebethMedia

It’s been less than a week since Elon Musk became “Chief Twit” at Twitter, and he has already come up with ideas that are stupider than walking into HQ with a sink. According to a report from The Verge, the new owner of Twitter wants to charge users $20 per month for a verified blue check. This feature would be part of Twitter Blue, the existing subscription feature that launched last year. Musk has not been subtle about his distaste for the monthly $4.99 product, which admittedly is not very appealing to anyone beyond power users. Currently, subscribing to Twitter Blue gets you early access to some features like the edit button, as well as the ability to change the design of the Twitter app icon on your phone. You can also get ad-free access to certain news sources, as well as a feed of the most talked about articles from the people you follow, and the people they follow. “What committee came up with the list of dog shit features in Blue?!? It’s worth paying to turn it off!” venture capitalist Jason Calacanis texted Elon Musk in April. The exchange was revealed as part of discovery in the trial between Twitter and Musk. “Yeah, what an insane piece of shit!” Musk replied. Now, Calacanis — who changed his Twitter bio to say he is Chief Meme Officer at Twitter — is supposedly part of Musk’s “war room,” alongside Musk’s other VC buddies like David Sacks. Musk and Calacanis have continued toying with the idea of paid user verification since April. Calacanis, per the leaked texts, laid out a five-part plan to Musk, including the concept of a “membership team,” which would “remove bots while getting users to pay for ‘real name membership.’” He also complained that “no one is setting priorities ruthlessly” at Twitter, and that “12,000 people are working on whatever they want.” Musk responded, “Want to be a strategic advisor to Twitter if this works out?” The desire to “authenticate all humans” has been part of Musk’s plan since he initially made his takeover bid. Potential security flaws aside, this plan ignores the fundamental difference between verifying someone’s identity, and giving someone a blue check to denote that they are who they say they are. “You could easily clean up bots and spam and make the service viable for many more users — removing bots and spam is a lot less complicated than what the Tesla self driving team is doing,” Calacanis texted Musk. “And why should blue check marks be limited to the elite, press and celebrities? How is that democratic?” Musk and his buddies view this plan as a way to get people to actually give Twitter money. But by monetizing a symbol that currently has value, they will ultimately remove all of that existing value. Blue checks exist on social platforms as a means of combatting misinformation. Currently, if someone makes a fake account pretending to be a world leader, journalist or celebrity, it’s easy to tell it’s a fake if the account doesn’t have a blue check. But under this newly proposed system, there’s not much incentive to pay the $20 per month to stay verified, especially since the once-coveted symbol would be available to anyone willing to pay. It’s quite possible that bad actors trying to pose as journalists to spread fake news would be more incentivized to pay the $20 than actual journalists. The Chief Twit doesn’t seem to care very much about the dangers of misinformation, though. Just this weekend, Musk tweeted (and then deleted) a fraudulent conspiracy theory about the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Another avenue for this feature could be to charge corporations like Netflix or Steak-umm (which has a great Twitter presence) to be verified. Corporate clients are likely more willing than a local nonprofit newsroom to drop $20 a month per account to prove legitimacy. Yet this still doesn’t solve the misinformation issue, and if anything, it pressures companies into buying a product that they’ve gotten free for years in order to prevent a possible PR problem. For now, it doesn’t seem like Twitter users are particularly enthusiastic about this plan. Calacanis posted a poll asking how much people would pay to be verified, and at the time of publication, about 81% of over a million respondents said that they would not pay. But as our own Ivan Mehta wrote earlier, “Seven days is a long time in Elonverse and he might come up with a different verification tactic altogether.” Hopefully, that plan is a bit more thought-through than this one. 

Read More

Bengaluru launches QR train ticketing service on WhatsApp • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on Posted in india, Social, WhatsAppNo Comments on Bengaluru launches QR train ticketing service on WhatsApp • ZebethMedia

WhatsApp users in the city of Bengaluru can now use the instant messaging app to purchase train tickets and recharge their travel passes, the Meta-owned platform said Monday in what it described as “the first-ever QR ticketing service” for its app. WhatsApp and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) said they have partnered to launch a WhatsApp chatbot-based QR ticketing service for the city’s rapid transit system named Namma Metro. Available in English and Kannada, the chatbot allows commuters to purchase their single-journey transit tickets, recharge metro travel pass, check updated fare tables and view transit timetable. Commuters need to send ‘Hi’ to the phone number +918105556677 to initiate their interactions with the chatbot. “This is yet another great example of how organizations across sectors, from the largest transportation service to the smallest retail business, can transform their customers’ experience using the WhatsApp Platform,” said Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp India, in a prepared statement. WhatsApp users can make payments for their tickets and recharges using UPI after choosing their travel details on the app. The QR ticket, once generated, can be scanned at the terminal for contactless entry and exit. “It is a proud moment for us as BMRCL becomes the first transit service globally to launch QR ticketing service on WhatsApp,” said A.S. Shankar, Executive Director (O&M), BMRC, in a statement. WhatsApp considers India as its biggest market globally, with more than 400 million users. Earlier this year, the Meta-owned messaging service also got the approval to extend its UPI-powered payments service to 100 million users in the country after a series of delays and setbacks.

Read More
business and solar energy