I imply, positive, he reinstated a bunch of beforehand banned accounts, a lot of which had been re-banned. It additionally made the platform much less advertiser-friendly increasing options to remove contentand permit neighborhood notes to be added to Promoted Tweets.
However when it comes to guidelines and approaches, Twitter is both just about the similar as earlier than, or slowly reverting to its outdated programs as Musk and his Twitter 2.0 crew be taught why these authentic guidelines had been put in place in the first place.
Take, for instance, the validation that Musk initially used as a component of a real “altering of the guard,” the assertion that issues could be a lot totally different beneath his regime.
Twitter’s present Lords and Peasants system of figuring out who does or doesn’t have a blue tick is bullshit.
Energy of the individuals! Blue for $8 a month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
After that, Musk and firm rapidly rolled out their new $8 verification plan, which led to an on the spot flood of imitations and issues, prompting Twitter to shut it down in only a few days.
Everybody predicted this might occur. However Elon was nonetheless keen to push his new technique, forcing him to elevate the value to keep away from losses due to app retailer taxes.
A month later, when Twitter relaunched verification, new parameters had been added that instantly started to replicate the “lords and peasants” system that Musk had criticized. Authorities organizations and companies can have separate classifications, whereas Twitter will implement new verification measures to decrease impersonation, together with eradicating a checkmark every time a Twitter Blue follower adjustments their username or profile image.
These settings make sense, in fact, however once more, the adjustments transfer the system extra in line with how Twitter beforehand managed this factor. In the meantime, Twitter additionally gifted verification to its prime 10,000 advertisers, in addition to individuals with greater than 1,000,000 followers, recognizing their significance to the program.
In different phrases, Twitter remains to be vetting primarily based by itself inner standards, and these customers are certainly handled in another way. Not solely do these profiles not require paying for a verification test, they do not even want to apply. Basically, the Twitter 2.0 crew has now acknowledged that these customers want verification to defend their id inside the app, and that is what the authentic verification course of was applied for. And now, via its personal trial and error, Twitter has come to the similar conclusion as its earlier administration, though Musk and firm proceed to say in any other case.
This was highlighted once more on Twitter this week launch of a new procedure for submitting applications for state profileswhich features a sequence of checks and qualifiers to confirm your id and token eligibility.
The brand new process is smart – Twitter needs to ensure that these with a grey tick are actually who they are saying they’re. However once more, this solely brings the system again in line with how it was. And whereas anybody can now purchase a tick if they need, the suggestion that Twitter is taking a radically totally different method right here is inaccurate and flies in the face of the actuality of its method.
You may say the similar about the varied characteristic additions, resembling longer tweets, followings, and neighborhood notes. All of them had been both in improvement or launched lengthy earlier than Elon took over, and Twitter merely cleared its deck of experiments and styled each as a brand new variant.
Regardless of all the hype about the app’s adjustments, Twitter is not actually that removed from its earlier state. A lot of the rule adjustments and updates that Elon applied had been both reversed due to issues in the program, or reverted to guidelines related to what they had been earlier than.
Twitter can be nonetheless bowing to authorities requests, with authorities in India, China and Russia now showing to be getting higher therapy beneath Musk, regardless of Musk’s “Twitter Information” challenge, which purported to reveal related initiatives by which Twitter labored with authorities teams.
Twitter remains to be the similar, it’s simply that the particular person calling works in another way. Some might even see this as a greater scenario, however the concept that Twitter is now extra open, much less restricted and fewer influenced by administration is wrong.
The one actual distinction is that Twitter needs to cost individuals more cash to use its instruments, be it via verification, API utilization, and many others. However it’s attention-grabbing to be aware that its programs are nonetheless largely the similar, and with a a lot smaller workers, it’s laborious to see how Twitter goes to implement vital adjustments to additional enhance its choices.
However I am positive Elon has a plan that goes past merely intimidating customers and paying him $8 a month to improve the attain of his tweets.
Maybe Tucker Carlson’s new present is the subsequent step in Twitter’s content material and inventive focus that can convey extra customers to the app.