After more than six-months of uncertainties filled with accusations and legal battles, Elon Musk announced the official acquisition of Twitter on October 28. Since then, Twitter has been in the limelight, most times drawing criticism right, left, and centre, thanks to Musk’s unpredictable management approach.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Twitter’s new boss, fired Twitter’s staff and brought changes to how the company functions. Here’s everything you need to know about what has happened since he took over and what he has in store.
Massive layoffs
Twitter, under Elon Musk, fired half of its workforce last Friday. Close to 3,700 people were through email, allegedly to cut costs. Musk later tweeted:
However, Reuters reported that many Twitter employees learned about losing their job after suddenly being cut off from company-wide systems like email and Slack.
Tweets by company employees said the teams responsible for content curation, communications, machine learning ethics, and human rights were among those fired, along with some product and engineering teams.
In a new development, the company is apparently contacting a bunch of workers who lost their jobs and asking them to return.
According to Bloomberg, some of those who have been asked to return to work were laid off by mistake. Others were let go before management realised that their work and experience would be necessary to build new features that Musk envisions.
Twitter sued by former staff
As a result of the massive layoffs, Twitter is being sued by five former employees who say they were not given enough notice that they were losing their jobs. According to the lawsuit, the employees found out they had been let go when they were locked out of their work accounts on Thursday.
$8 for Blue tick
In another significant change, Twitter has launched a new subscription service allowing users to buy blue-tick verification badges for a monthly fee of $8. Currently, the service is available only in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Users who opt for the subscription service will also get
- Priority in replies, mentions & search
- Ability to post long video & audio
- Half the number of advertisements
To reiterate, Elon Musk was considering charging $20 for the Blue tick badge.
In a tweet, Musk added that this would give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators. Clarifying impersonating issues, which according to Musk happens frequently, he tweets, “If verified accounts violate terms of service, eg spam/scam/impersonation, they’ll be suspended, but Twitter will keep their money!”
By making this move, Musk hopes to not only reduce company costs but also to diversify Twitter’s revenue streams.
Jack Dorsey’s tweet
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, apologised for the situation that led to mass layoffs. He tweeted, “I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.”
Long-form content
Musk also tweeted about an update on adding long-form text to tweets.
In a tweet, he wrote, “Twitter will soon add the ability to attach long-form text to tweets, ending the absurdity of notepad screenshots. Followed by creator monetization for all forms of content.”
However, there is no clarity on how this feature will be implemented and when it will arrive. He also added that the company is working on enhancing the platform’s search functionality.
“Search within Twitter reminds me of Infoseek in ’98! That will also get a lot better pronto,” he wrote.
Lost more than a million users
Bot Sentinel, a firm that fights disinformation and targeted harassment on Twitter, estimates that more than 875,000 accounts were deactivated, and a further 497,000 were suspended between October 27 and November 1, reports MIT Technology Review.
“We have observed an uptick in people deactivating their accounts and also Twitter suspending accounts,” says Christopher Bouzy, Bot Sentinel’s founder.
Many celebrities, including Stephen King, Gigi Hadid, Shonda Rhimes, Ken Olin, Ron Perlman, Sara Bareilles, Toni Braxton, Alan Ritchson, and others, have left Twitter after Elon’s acquisition.
Accurate source of information
Elon Musk is on a mission to make Twitter the most accurate source of information in the world.
There’s no denying that Musk is now in a position to dictate how Twitter should run. And with that power comes a lot of responsibility – something we hope he takes seriously.
UN’s open letter to Elon Musk
Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, published an open letter to Elon Musk on Saturday urging him to make sure that human rights are a top priority for Twitter’s management.
“Like all companies, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them. Respect for our shared human rights should set the guardrails for the platform’s use and evolution,” says Türk.
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