On April 4th, Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter. Days after taking control of the company, Elon Musk aimed to leave his stamp on Twitter Inc. For that, this richest guy in the world has been analyzing the company’s code with assistance from Tesla Inc. experts. And consulting with influential friends he trusts to assist him in making crucial decisions regarding where to take the brand.
With the help of around 7,000 employees, a 16-year-old brand has been modified and it affected the real world people.
Verification Badge
A paid version of the social media platform, called Twitter Blue, was announced by Elon Musk in October end. The costing was set to be $20 per month including a verification badge.
It didn’t sit well with a majority of the tweeteratis, and some prominent figures tweeted their opinion over the same.
Stephen King
An author argued that he should receive payment for using Twitter because he was enraged by the thought of paying for the service. He was answered by Elon Musk, who said, “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers,” and an $8 monthly fee was proposed. It was the very first time when Elon Musk came down to some negotiation.
After replying to him, Elon Musk announced the new cost of the Blue tick to be $8. And on 2nd November, Musk released a statement in response to complaints made on the platform. To all the complainers, this is what he responded with-
This led to scathing criticism of the site, particularly from verified accounts that had used the Blue Tick as a “status symbol” for years.
But just after introducing this premium blue tick verification badge, lots of fake verified accounts like Elon Musk’s owned Tesla and SpaceX appeared on Twitter with the blue tick.
On Twitter, there are currently two different types of verified accounts. One was verified before Musk’s takeover and states, “This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another specified category.” The other verified account belongs to someone who paid $8 per month for Twitter Blue.
Many Twitter advertisers have stopped running ads as they are analyzing the new leadership’s policies. And the recent mess of fake accounts also has increased their distrust.
Here are some tweets of celebrities and brands who had tweeted prior to exiting from Twitter.
“Grey’s Anatomy” creator Shonda Rhimes tweeted to her nearly 2 million Twitter followers, “Not hanging around for whatever Elon has planned. Bye.”
The Grammy-winning singer and songwriter, Sara Bareilles tweeted to her nearly 3 million followers: “Welp. It’s been fun Twitter. I’m out. See you on the other platforms, peeps. Sorry, this one’s just not for me.” she added, capping her post with heart and prayer-hands emojis.
Balenciaga
A luxury fashion brand also deleted its profile from Twitter without any announcement or tweet. Later, “Good Morning America”, an American morning television program confirmed that the brand Balenciaga will no longer maintain a Twitter account moving forward.
The fake or bogus accounts include several well-known people.
Twitter itself was one of them. Twitter Blue was apparently given away “free” to crypto/NFT holders who verified their wallet assets by a troll who pretended to be the social media platform itself in order to mislead consumers. Thousands of people retweeted and quoted that tweet.
Meanwhile, a realistic-looking account of Nintendo of America showed Mario flashing people the middle finger for around two hours. Before it was deleted, the tweet, which included the username “nintendoofus,” was retweeted more than 2,300 times.
Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly was similarly fooled, with a verified account promising free insulin. Eli Lilly’s stock price dropped sharply after the fake tweet. The fake tweet remained on the social media platform for hours before it was taken down. Further, the real Eli Lilly account later tweeted, “We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account.”
And after revealing new revenue splits for creators, a verified Twitch account was retweeted hundreds of times, which confused Twitch users.
Additionally, a fake LeBron James account was created, where it was announced that the basketball player wanted to be traded from the Lakers. Other players who received the same treatment included baseball pitcher Aroldis Chapman and NHL player Connor McDavid.
Below you can see a screenshot of the suspended account.
Unsurprisingly, a number of well-known individuals also discovered fake accounts linked to their names:
Adam Schefter– Several NFL fans were duped by a tweet that looked to originate from the ESPN analyst confirming the firing of Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels. More than 4,000 people quoted and retweeted it, but it was a fake.
Ben Shapiro- A user impersonating the conservative political commentator tweeted,” Matt Walsh won’t stop calling me and talking about genitalia.”
Due to this blunder of verified fake accounts, Musk stated on Thursday that he would start deleting legacy blue ticks soon. This comes after remarks he made on Wednesday in Twitter Spaces. He declared that the business would “vigorously” go after accounts that mimic others or are unethical, suspending them “at least temporarily”.
(Notify: As of Friday, the new blue checkmark was deleted from accounts and the company seemed to have suspended the initiative.)
Layoffs
Employees at Twitter have been prepared for layoffs since Musk took over. He terminated the company’s senior executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal. Several individuals with director and vice president positions were terminated over the weekend, like CFO Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.
However, on November 4, Elon Musk made the decision to make even more cost reductions. He cut half of its workforce to 7,500 employees. In all, about 3,700 people were laid off. 180 out of 230 employees from India were let go from the content, partnerships, social marketing teams, sales and content curation teams.
What do you think? Will twitter again gain the trust of brands and people? Or this is the fate of Twitter that we need to accept without much of a choice!
