Through all the times big corporations like Twitter, Google were immune to the lawsuits against them regarding the content posted on each of their platforms. However, current legal cases are about to change this.
There are always battles between Republicans and Democrats, between right and left about the censorship on the Internet. Nowadays, the regulations of blocking content are not really understandable for a lot of people. Some unharmful posts can be deleted, while disturbing pictures still remain in place. So, the debates about how to make the Internet field not a paradise, but not hell at the same time, are on the stage.
This summer is considered to be decisive for the companies in the US, thus, in the European Union. The aim of the justices is to review all the existing cases and come with the legislations and systems that would prevent people from posting/seeing disturbing content, while still having a freedom of speech.
One of the most recent lawsuits was made against Twitter. Several antisemitic posts were noticed on the platform, that were indented to attack Jewish people and deny the Holocaust. Those posts breaking the law of Germany (from where they were posted) as well as breaking terms and conditions of Twitter. The users of the platform have expressed their feeling of being betrayed by the company after it was bought by Elon Mask.
Why was this post not deleted if it was violating terms and conditions of the platform?
The answer is rather easy. After Elon Mask’s purchase of Twitter, it was announced that the company is going to loosen rules and will stop banning so much of the content. The Campaign Against Antisemitism that was a close partner to the company said that the ‘laws’ of the firm started to fall apart after the shift of the ownership to the billionaire.
So, now we are approaching one of the biggest and most interesting changes when it comes to the censorship not only on platforms mentioned above, but also all over the Internet. A lot of people think that we should still leave space for the freedom of speech, as we want to build strong democracy, however this can threaten people life’s and feeling of safeness on the Internet.
While on the other side, we have the fact that banning ‘inappropriate’ content, can actually be difficult to implement, as there are no strict limitations of what is good or bad. Additionally, that would threaten one of the fundamental rights – the freedom of speech.
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter at the end of October, he made a lot of changes and controversial decisions. He laid-off around half of the workers and unbanned controversial Twitter users such as rapper Kanye West, former US president Donald Trump and influencer Andrew Tate. In addition, Musk said that Twitter will be deleting accounts that have been inactive for a certain period of time. This caused indignation among those, who have been cherishing the accounts of their loved ones, who have passed away.
The firm was running at a loss for a lenghty period of time so it needed to become profitable. Elon Musk did what most of the companies nowadays do and introduced a paid subscription. He called it TwitterBlue and launched it at the beginning of November, at first it was just a way to “get a blue checkmark, just like celebrities, and politicians you already follow”. Previously blue checkmark was limited only to those, who were verified by twitter meaning that this was their official account. In contrary to what Elon expected, people started abusing it to impersonate brands and famous people. There were even many cases of people impersonating Elon Musk himself leading to spread of misinformation on the platform.
Now it’s back, TwitterBlue in it upgraded form is available for purchase on the web for $8/month or on iOS for $11/month. That’s right, iOS users have to pay extra for absolutely nothing and that’s because of Apple’s 30% in-app purchase tax.
TwitterBlue features
But what do you actually get from this subscription? Here’s the list:
Tweets from verified users will be prioritized, meaning that Twitter will list the tweets and replies from subscribers higher, to help fight scams and spam, as Twitter says
You will see less ads, half of them to be exact, as Elon promised. Many people say thought that this won’t happen due to the impact it would have on Twitter’s ad revenue
TwitterBlue subscribers will have access to posting longer videos and in 1080p quality making uploading videos to Twitter more YouTube-like.
In addition, you will get access to Tweet editing, reader mode and of course, the blue checkmark right beside your account name. But this time, it will only come after your account has been reviewed by twitter
Twitter post regarding TwitterBlue
Eligibility criteria for the blue checkmark
The blue checkmark didn’t serve the intended purpose previously, so the Twitter team figured out a way to verify accounts this time:
First of all, an account must have a display name and profile photo
Account has to be older than 90 days, have a confirmed phone number and be active in the past 30 days
Additionally the account must have no recent changes of profile picture, display name or username, otherwise the account has to be verified again
Account must have no signs of being misleading and can’t have any signs of manipulation or spam
The checkmark will now only appear when the account meets the requirements.
New checkmarks
Twitter is also adding different checkmarks for different accounts. Gold checkmark will now appear beside official brand accounts and gray ticks will be visible on the goverment and multilateral accounts pages. Twitter is also working on a system that would enable brands to assign an indicator to accounts of its employees as another mean of verification.
Elon Musk hopes that these measures will reduce or even completely get rid of impersonators and spreading of misinformation. All of this requires manual reviews by twitter employees. Taking into consideration the amount of workers that has been laid-off by Musk, it seems like a hard task to do and something that will require more working hours.
In my opinion introducing TwitterBlue is a great move by Mr Musk, it will surely generate more profit for the company and help it in these dark times. I am sure that many users will be tempted by this subcription and decide to at least try it out.
Few Polish businesses have a plan for managing and enhancing their reputations. Western European companies, on the other hand, do it in a more planned and deliberate manner. Furthermore, especially in today’s digital age, businesses interact through various platforms, which presents several obstacles to consistency and efficiency in communication.
Reputation – an important part of Management
Up to 90% of a company’s market value may come from its reputation. Although a good reputation takes years to build and can be lost in an instant, most companies in Poland only react when a crisis occurs. A strong business reputation leads to superior financial outcomes, client loyalty, and image-building. Reputation is frequently exclusively connected with an organization’s outward appearance, but the image is more about “What do our customers think of us?”. Although superficial, appearance does not accurately represent reputation.
Reputation management has evolved over the years. Today, reputation building is heavily influenced by social media and the internet. For instance, according to research from the Pew Research Center, 91% of individuals trust what they read and see in search results, which is why many companies aim to build a good image in Google’s search results.
The way companies operate can be divided into two types:
Some companies are proactive. In order to improve their image and provide value to their surroundings, they work on image initiatives. They also maintain good communication with the company’s stakeholders and are open to hearing other people’s thoughts. These businesses are frequently quite active on social media, especially professional networks like LinkedIn or Twitter and conventional media. In addition, they take care of their image on the search engine, which is as essential a medium today as Facebook or YouTube. The second category consists of businesses prioritizing protecting their reputations above enhancing them, primarily by keeping an eye on the environment and reducing risks.
A strong reputation means more significant success in the business field and success in achieving goals. Additionally, it translates into stronger client loyalty, dedication, and crisis resilience for the business. Employer image is unquestionably the third factor. After all, we are more likely to submit applications to companies with solid reputations.
Trust is essential to developing an organization’s market position, both from consumers and staff members and partner businesses. It is one of the most critical factors in establishing an organization’s market position, particularly in the era of social media, where one post may define your company’s destiny. According to research presented in ” Managing Your Company’s Most Valuable Asset: Its Reputation,” a company’s reputation is thought to contribute anywhere between 20 and 90% of its market value.
According to the ASAP CARE 24 agency’s report, 23% of internet users interact with brands on social media, and a similar percentage regularly follow brand profiles there. The opinions they discover on these platforms significantly impact consumers’ decisions to purchase products.
However, hackers may quickly access social media platforms and the posted content. It is also harder to respond promptly to hate speech that is not on the record. Therefore, the only things that can prevent a catastrophe are a set strategy and a consistent social media presence. Fake news, however, poses a serious problem since it is so prevalent online.
Such an occurrence has happened recently to many companies after Elon Musk took over Twitter and implemented a paid coveted blue check subscription. As a result, impersonation accounts of well-known people and businesses quickly flooded the platform. Eli Lilly, one of the country’s largest insulin suppliers, was one of the businesses that suffered the most from the increase in fake accounts, with billions of dollars being wiped off its stock due to controversial tweets from impersonation accounts. The Washington Post reported that Eli Lilly saw its stock value fall by more than 4%, or $15 billion, after a fake account using Musk’s verification system tweeted: “We are excited to announce insulin is now free.” The company’s executives had to order a halt to all Twitter ad campaigns. Additionally, they suspended their global corporate accounts’ Twitter publishing schedule.
It is difficult to get out of such situations. Once a fake is released, it is challenging to take it back. That’s why we have to keep in mind that everything we do on the internet is being reflected on society or the social group we are part of and that on the internet, nothing ever disappears completely.
The acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk began on April 14 and concluded on October 27. In the first month of his saga, he became the largest shareholder with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. He wrote that he wants to create “a common digital town square”, where everyone can speak freely.
Elon’s actions
In the first two days, an eccentric billionaire took over the company he fired half of the employees including the CEO, CFO, and head of legal policy, trust, and safety. A week after he set an ultimatum for the rest of the employees: either work in a “hardcore environment” or leave. Probably he didn’t expect that the next 1200 employees will resign. It led to the closing of whole departments of the company. The funny thing, in Californian law there is a record that says all formalities regarding employee resignation must be done within 72 hours after it. For Twitter, it was hard to do, because the department which was responsible for this action was closed. The CEO of Tesla scrapped the company’s work-from-home policy, but after those events, he had to temporarily close offices. Everything led to lots of bad press on Elon Musk, the creation of #RIPTwitter, and 4 million dollars lost per day.
Funny paradox
Everyone wants to see Twitter dead and it makes this media source as alive as it never was. The platform now is doing very well, besides the internal problems of the company, they are making all-time highs almost every day. Last week there were 1.6 million daily active users. Moreover, a lot of Elon’s fans are ready to work for free just to help their “hero”. I think that Twitter’s mission is the thing that makes it special. The platform is elevating citizen journalism and by that, they are competing with mainstream media oligopoly, forcing them to be more accurate. There is freedom of speech, but as Elon Musk said, not freedom of reach. It means that negative/ hate tweets will be deboosted. You won’t be able to find them unless you specifically seek them out.
What do you think about Elon’s recent moves? Is Twitter going to die or rather thrive?
Reading Time: 3minutesCredit: Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu Agency via Getty
New controversial informations are leaked, after the fresh acquisition of Twitter Inc. by CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company – Elon Musk
Because of his well known leadership, managing, and very harsh working conditions new contradictions are coming out to the light of the day concerning the new order set up in Twitter San Francisco HQ.
After firing top managers and workers of Twitter Inc. Elon Musk now raised an issue about Twitter’s big expenditure on employees’ lunches. It is stated that Twitter is spending $13 million on food service every year. Ms Tracy Hawkins, a former VP of Work transformation, who ran a food program, stated that Twitter spent between $20-$25 a day per person, so that they can work properly throughout the whole day. She also stated that attendance rate was ranging between 20-50% in offices.
There is a lot of controversy and hate directed to Elon Musk, for taking away ‘free’ food from workers, and forcing them to pay for it. Many people resigned from the jobs right after Twitter Inc. was taken over.
However, I personally do not agree with those statements. Even though Mr. Musk is known for squeezing last juices of their workers, while saving as much as possible, I find his activities very appropriate. During 2021, Twitter generated a revenue of $5 billion, which was an increase of +35% comparing to year 2020 – it was mainly a revenue from advertising. Even though Twitter generated such great revenue, it reported a net loss of $221 million. In 2020 the amount of loss Twitter generated was $1.1 billion.
Twitter’s net income from 1st quarter 2012 to 2nd quarter 2022 (in million U.S. dollars)
The real question is….. Isn’t it better to cut unnecessary costs and make such big and good platform actually profitable and successful? In my personal opinion, the approach of Elon Musk is just the right path of accomplishing this goal. Of course, serving a free food in San Francisco HQ most likely was great for the workers, very ethical, as well as it probably gave them an energy to work, which was then put on an overall performance of the company. However, the attendance rate, which former VP mentioned was around 20-50% in reality – was just below 10% (25% was at its highest). Here is Musks response:
It is said that many Twitter workers just prefer to work remotely, which makes the HQ food service even more useless. I highly agree with Musks response, as his reaction to the whole situation. By reducing the food service in Twitter’s San Francisco HQ, the company will not only reduce the amount of wasted food, but moreover, save a lot of money, which could be invested into further development of the company as well as decrease the final loss (and maybe eventually make Twitter Inc. a profitable company longterm).
Evaluating, I think that without Elon Musk and his acquisition, Twitter Inc. could possibly go bankrupt in future, with such losses, which were noted more years than profits. Also, charging workers for food service may bring additional revenue, which the can be invested into lots of other sectors of the company.
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Thank you for reading through this article, before going, I have a few questions which I would love you to answer! Leave a comment and let me know your point of view on that!
What is your opinion on this whole situation?
Should a company such as Twitter Inc. provide free food service to their customers?
How will you see the future of Twitter under Elon Musks’ ownership?
It’s only been a week since the most powerful person in the world bought Twitter, so what’s happened in that time in the bird’s nest?
Let’s start with the fact that all famous personalities who were blocked for various reasons got access to their accounts, which meant that the new head of the company decided to fight against permanent blocking on Twitter. Moreover, he canceled almost the entire set of prohibited content, including racist and homophobic words. The most incomprehensible thing that has happened since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is the dismissal of a considerable part of the employees, while now he intends to return some of them for the reason that for the upcoming update of the social network
The community had mixed reviews about this, many began to call Twitter the second Reddit with their toxic content, others believe that the social network has returned the concept of free speech. Now everyone is waiting for further actions of the new director. It is already known that Musk plans to revive the long-forgotten “Vine” and make Twitter the most reliable source of information, but it is not clear how this will be implemented.
Well, let’s start as everyone knows, recently Elon Musk became the official owner of Twitter. As we can see, Elon Musk is wasting no time and is trying to implement a blockchain system on Twitter in the near future, and Bloomberg analysts believe that this will happen.
So,against the backdrop of these news the “meme” currency dogecoin (dogecoins), which Musk has long supported for a long time (he even called himself “Dogefather”), and which, according to his negotiations with colleagues, he even planned to use on Twitter to pay for reposts and comments, as result already gone up sharply in price.We can notice over the past five days, the dogecoin (DOGE) rate has grown by 83%, however, then it slightly decreased as part of the correction.
However, you need to understand long before the acquisition of Twitter by Musk, Twitter was still consciously developing its crypto direction and Twitter even created a dedicated Twitter Crypto department.Earlier, under the leadership of Jack Dorsey, Twitter took steps to integrate blockchain technology into this social network – for example, the ability to accept tips in Bitcoins, Ethereum, NFT and the USDC digital dollar was introduced.
In general, Elon Musk is not the first time integrating cryptosystems into his companies. Let me remind you that in May 2021, Tesla offered the opportunity to pay for electric cars with bitcoins, but two months later the project was curtailed. However, from January 14, 2022, the company introduced payment in dogecoin cryptocurrency for Tesla merch. So, currently, you can buy a whistle in the form of the expected Cybertruck SUV with meme-coins. Previously, you could also buy a Tesla logo buckle and a Tesla Cyberquad for kids.
So let’s wait, what will be the consequences of Elon Musk’s decision to strengthen crypto integration on Twitter, as well as cooperation with Binance, and what will they achieve together?
New informations are shared about Elon Musk and his $44 billion takeover deal of Twitter Inc.
CEO & founder of Tesla Inc. has been sued after cancelling his Twitter Inc. purchase. He proposed a price of $54.20 per share back in April, which he now has to fulfill, as Twitter’s lawsuit made in July forces Mr. Musk to close his deal with a proposed price per share.
Because of Elon Musks’ decision, Tesla shares decreased significantly, as CEO of Tesla sold around 9 billion$ of company’s shares, as a portion of money which would be used to finalize the deal.
It is said that Musks’ lawyers refused to hand over documents to Twitter, which they reffered to as a “investigative privilege“.
After few months, in September, all documents have been handed in – including a specific “drafts of a 13 May email to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – the American regulator which enforces the law against market manipulation.” as BBC news article states. There were also documents handed to FTC – Federal Trade Comission (which mission is to promote “antitrust law and consumer protection”).
However, Alex Spiro, who is Elon Musks’ attorney, stated that “Twitter’s court filing was a “misdirection“.”
He stated that “It is Twitter’s executives that are under federal investigation” which suggests that it is not about Elon Musk. After the statement, Twitter Inc. did not wanted to leave a comment.
Eventually, Elon Musk decided to get back with continuing and finalizing the deal. In early October, Twitter’s shares increased from ~42$ per share, to 52$, which is equivalent to 23% – as a result of Musks’ decision.
Thank you for reading through this article. Let me know in the comments if you think this whole ”Twitter vs. Musk” deal is a set-up or just a speculation? Also, are you on a side of Elon Musk or Twitter as a whole company? How would you like this whole situation to finish?
Reading Time: 2minutesIllustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
The $44 billion offer was made by Elon Musk to acquire Twitter. This deal has been made after the released information that Elon bought 9.4% of Twitter shares before. On the 14th of April, Elon has proposed a deal to buyout Twitter as a whole and take it private. On Monday, 26th of April, Twitter agreed to the deal for Elon to buy the company at the price of $54.20 per share, which is 38% higher since it’s been revealed that Musk is trying to buy it out.
The famous Tesla CEO, has been a very, very active Twitter user in the past. There are numerous infamous tweets made by Elon, which disrupted our society in many ways. From changing prices of stocks, crypto and “normal currencies, to creating a huge scandals over his controversial short sentances sent to his 83-million follower group. To say that he has been influential for the platform is an understatement. Elon is ensuring that he has great plans for Twitter, and all of them revolve around the freedom of speech. Supposedly, Elon wants to
“make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
The changes that are coming will certainly have a big impact on all of us. The question is, what kind of impact – what kind of consequences will it have? Personally, I think that the plan to take down of bots is great. Bots are one of the main reasons for me to not use twitter. Also, if Elon’s plan to ensure freedom of speech, while increasing trust and defeating spam and misinformation will work out, twitter, for the first time could be taken seriously as a medium fo information for the public.
What do You think? How do you see it and what consequences this deal can have for all of us? Let me know in the comments below!
Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man and the biggest shareholder of Twitter, will no longer join the social media service’s board of directors, the company said late Sunday. On Tuesday, Twitter announced that the billionaire would be appointed to its 11-person board for a term that expires in 2024. The invitation to join the board followed Mr. Musk’s accumulating a 9.2 percent stake in the company, making him its largest shareholder.
However, Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s chief executive, tweeted late Sunday that the situation had changed. On Saturday morning, Mr. Musk — who is a heavy Twitter user with more than 81 million followers — told the company he would no longer become a board member, Mr. Agrawal said.
By not joining Twitter’s board, Mr. Musk will also no longer be bound by a previous agreement he had signed with the company. Under a “standstill” agreement last week, he had pledged not to purchase more than 14.9 percent of Twitter’s stock and not to take over the company. That suggests Mr. Musk could now keep adding to his stake in the company.
When Twitter revealed in an S.E.C. filing on Monday that Mr. Musk had bought the stake in the company, the news was greeted with fanfare. As a prolific Twitter user, Mr. Musk’s investment appeared to be a vote of confidence in the company, sending its stock soaring that day by more than 25 percent.
Mr. Musk’s purchases of Twitter stock also came at a delicate time for the company. Twitter has been going through a transition since Jack Dorsey, a company founder, stepped down as chief executive last year. Mr. Agrawal, the chief technology officer, was appointed in his place.
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