Wait, a Tesla runs on python?
JonRowe
1713
Hell yeah, he is going to try to automate content moderation and authentication it is going to be a nightmare.
ShivaX
1714
Elon: AI will destroy us all.
Also Elon: AI should handle literally every fucking thing.
Ergo, Elon hates us all and wants us dead. QED.
Timex
1719
“I will explain this in long form, not in the form supported by this platform I just purchased for $44 billion, because it makes real discussion impossible and is dominated by bots and trolls.”
Many will pay.
Anyone who’s not independently famous already, and wants to have any credibility on Twitter, will pay for this. Many proeminent figures won’t need this, but a rando journo for example, whose name means nothing without a checkmark will pay for sure. Or get their org to pay for them.
Speaking as a rando journo, not sure what the check mark would do for me (not that I’m on Twitter) or my organisation.
Edit: Just checked and my organisation doesn’t have a blue tick
I mean, he’s right. People come to twitter for content. Stephen King, and many other current “blue checks” are the content creators.
How I see it, there’s 2 ways to stop the fake accounts. The verification route that Elon is endorsing, or way more aggressive moderation. Moderation costs huge amounts of money. Verification makes them money. Easy to see which makes sense financially.
If I’m a Twitter user and I want to avoid all the bullshit, I can filter my feed to show verified accounts only. I’m assuming that is the strategy.
Skipper
1723
I think there are more ways probably not explored, what’s an issue here is that after taking on debt and transferring it to twitter, Elon is immediately going to the people he NEEDS on the platform for content. It’s like lining up your best customers at a bar and telling them they get a monthly fee now. There are other bars down the street, why would they pay more?
Mixing in revenue replacements though, they could shoot for more stringent verification at NO cost, and since the platform would have a greater user-to-account ratio, use that to up the cost to advertisers. They could also go the Facebook route and offer more user data to advertisers. They could also cut 25% of the staff, like was just announced today, and combine that with NEW forms of revenue in some way, like adding things to the Twitter platform: better video integration, better content areas for super creators, etc.
If verification is voluntary, that won’t stop fake accounts, and they will still bear the cost of finding and closing fake accounts.
If verification is mandatory, then it’s just a fee-for-service proposition, and most of the users leave.
And the central objection remains: Twitter plans to charge their most valuable members a fee they don’t charge anyone else.
I think Elon is banking on the fact that there really isn’t a bar down the street that has the nightlife his gets, or to take it out of the analogy, Twitter is still king of short form, fast, easy wide audience communication.
I’m thinking of it more like a gated community. You can pay a fee to keep the riffraff out.
Is it worth it for a celebrity to pay $20 a month and rarely or never have to see all the bullshit in their feed? How many celebs have been “chased off” by a Twitter dogpile?
I think that’s Elon’s supposition. The benefit of weeding out undesirables is worth it for $X/mo. This is assuming people are as addicted to Twitter as he thinks they are.
But even then, assuming every existing verified user signs up, it’s a drop in the bucket and doesn’t really solve anything. Because Twitter is now deep in debt thanks to this takeover, and how does this solve the bot and spam issue if only the verified users sign up? You need to charge everyone if you want to make a dent in the bots. And in those cases, some nation states will still see it an investment of pennies on the dollar.
I can’t remember the article from the other day, maybe it’s up there somewhere, which suggested that Twitter’s valuable differentiation was basically content moderation. Without it, nobody would use Twitter, no matter how ‘good’ their software was. The more I think about it, the more right I think that is.
No the strategy is people like you will also pay the $20. Then you don’t need to see the anime avatars shitting up your feed. They can post out in no-man’s land while you’re all safe in your cloistered Blue Check country club.
I think they won’t. I won’t. Even the celebrities apparently won’t.
