Of VIPs and Alpha Males---the Musk Take Over of Twitter

Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover of Twitter has certainly ruffled feathers. As many observers have already noted, from his massive staff reduction to his reworking of the checkmarks system, and elimination of “cancel culture” moderation policies, his entry into the tech giant arena has resembled more of a “bull in the china shop” approach to reform, or else of a mad alpha Titan who had taken an overdose of male enhancement pills. His promotion of “de-botting” the program, by exposing it existed in the base coding itself, was in essence an admission that Twitter was no different than marketers who bot or create Twitter followers unnaturally (albeit via reputable firms).

But the sudden and aggressive conversion of the system clearly did not work out the potential fraud implications of reducing the cost of entry into blue check status. Already we’ve seen mega firms like Eli Lilly lose 4.37% of their stock value, when a fraudster got verified using its name and logo, then tweeted the company was going to start manufacturing free insulin. Disasters like this show that Musk did not really think things through, and is probably in over his head. Hence, the “Elon-apocalypse” of acrimony over his changes, as some observers have called it.

There is a simple solution to the verification mess, though whether Musk will employ it is a big question. Somehow along the way, being verified got tangled up with celebrity, VIP, or “big shot” status---though it doesn’t need to be. Paying one (low) fee to merely establish you are a real person, and a separate higher fee to establish you are in the “prominent public figure” category should be two different tiers of membership. The latter would be able to filter who can contact them to other VIPs as before, but without the online caste system deal of “I’m real with a checkmark, but you’re not” sanctimony. A simple $8 a month for verifying ID, but an $80 a month fee for celebrity status (with filtering out of non-VIP messages) would solve the whole issue.

However, Musk seems to have chosen for now to pursue a messier path of suspending the announced changes, while setting up a more complicated set of member tiers, that will basically remove the democratic arrangement he promised he was moving towards. This may be dissatisfying to both the older members who liked things the way they were and the pro-reform side who wanted simple changes. It gives off the appearance, again, that Musk never quite figured out how he was going to manage this tech giant company prior to becoming the “chief Twit.” Can Elon please all sides, get the advertisers he lost back, and avoid bankruptcy or other degrees of a train wreck if he can’t? Stay tuned.

Ultimately, Musk’s macho endgame is to build up the valuation of Twitter with combined services (messaging, video, etc) until it more resembles WeChat, a “one-stop shop” of social media services in Asia. According to one commenter, “sorry, but thinking that's the way to go is wrong. The rest of the world doesn't think like the CCP and its supporters in China. People in the rest of the world will not like having everything in one place. And if Twitter decides to go back to old Twitter while controlling everything in one place that's going to be very destructive. BUT saying this adding Youtube service to Twitter even piques my interest. Being as Youtube needs a real long content competition in the market. I just hope it's not another 30-second clip platform.”

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Created on Dec 22nd 2022 04:40. Viewed 211 times.

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