The Twitter platform is one of the largest platforms for social networking sites, as it was established in 2006, and today it has reached more than 100 million active users, and more than 500 million tweets are published on it per day, but recently, Twitter began to suffer several confusions and resignations, It led to falling below the barrier of 100 million users, with the loss of many of them due to the policy followed by the new owner of the platform, billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.. development or destruction?
Musk acquired Twitter on October 27, and since he took over the company, he began to implement his laws and impose his views. Musk wasted no time getting to know the way officials manage the platform when assuming his duties, but began his new era by dismissing several executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and Head of Legal Affairs, Trust and Safety Vijaya Jade, at the same time.
This change in the management of one of the largest social media platforms – which has a significant impact in several areas such as economics, politics, and technology – makes observers feel the danger that the arrival of a large figure such as Musk to a site the size of Twitter may bring, which makes the platform’s sky cloudy, heralding a mass exodus.
The migration of tweeters threatens the bluebird
Data from Insider Intelligence – which studies market research – showed that Twitter could lose more than 30 million users in the next two years after Musk takes over.
The study expects that Twitter will lose about 4% of its users in 2023, and 5% in the following year, which means that more than 32 million users will leave the platform, according to the expectations of Insider Intelligence, which has been tracking the platform since 2008, and believes that users will abandon the platform due to technical problems. The increase in hate speech and the spread of hateful or unwanted content.
It is expected that Twitter will lose more users in the United States than any other country, as the numbers are expected to decrease from 58.7 million in 2022 to 50.5 million by the end of 2024, due to Musk’s policy, which many people do not like, and the report said that most of the departures They will be under 25 and over 45 because they are not loyal enough and are less willing to endure a humiliating experience, the report describes.
But there are those who believe that the platform has a good base of loyal users who cannot leave, and Musk cannot force them to do so, as he did with his employees.
Twitter employees resign
Twitter began losing its employees after Musk recently fired dozens of employees who criticized him or mocked him in their tweets. Musk then set a deadline for all employees to respond to his message, as he sent a link and a final warning to the employees, and any employee who did not agree with what was included in the letter, it will be tantamount to The end of his career with Twitter, and he will receive an end-of-service bonus for 3 months.
Twitter has about 2,900 employees left after Musk’s warning deadline, due to Musk’s unofficial dismissal of about half of the workforce of 7,500 people, after taking office.
Some believe that the impact of these resignations on the platform will be temporary only, as the platform and Musk are greatly concerned with compensating the competencies that were sacked or resigned, but the question that arises is where these competencies will go.
Your employees are your new competitors
After Musk dismissed Alfonzo Fons Terrell and Davis Brown during the mass layoffs last November, the two former employees work on a social media platform called Spill and promote it as an alternative to Twitter.
They say the app will cater to “culture pioneers” and be a refuge for those fleeing Twitter’s new policies. The platform’s creators added that it aims to be a “real-time conversational platform that puts culture first.” The founders revealed that the platform will be launched early next year.
Terrell was the Global Head of Social and Editorial Affairs at Twitter, and Brown was a Product Manager at Twitter with a primary focus on machine learning.
The cake is no longer for Musk alone
Many Twitter users and employees may blame Jack Dorsey for selling the platform to Musk, but Dorsey seems to have found that the “bluebird” is on its last breath.
Dorsey recently suggested that there should be a free and open social media protocol that is not owned by any company or group of companies. He added that this protocol allows users to build and choose their own algorithms according to two factors, moderation and importance, and it will not be subject to the control of the company or the government.
“Mistakes were made in the past, and Twitter would be better off today if the company focused more on the tools for the people who use the service, rather than the tools for us,” Dorsey said.
He continued, “The problem today is that we have companies that own the protocol and discover the content, which puts one person – in the end – responsible for the decision to publish or delete.”
Dorsey cited Bluesky, a non-profit organization launched by Twitter, as well as Mastodon and Matrix as startups that could live up to his vision of what constitutes a free and open protocol for social media.
He said he would provide grants for promising projects, starting with $1 million for Signal, an encrypted messaging app.
This money, which will help these startups, is the decisive factor in the success or failure of Musk’s project, which is why Musk seeks to build the “X” application, or as he knows it, “the application of everything.”
Musk’s gamble could make Twitter an “all-or-nothing” app
The concept of the Everything App, often referred to as the Super Application, is very popular in Asia, and tech companies around the world have tried to replicate it.
This application offers a range of services to users such as messaging, social networking, payments, and e-commerce.
These behemoths are widely used in Asia because the mobile phone is the main form of Internet access for many people in the region, Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at New York University, wrote last year.
The Chinese super app WeChat has more than 1 billion monthly users, according to the latest estimates, and is ubiquitous in daily life in China. Through it, users can order a taxi, send money to friends and family, or make payments in stores.
Adding more tools and services to Twitter could help Musk reach the company’s growth goals. During a question-and-answer session with employees, he said he wanted Twitter to grow from 237 million users to “at least a billion”.
Musk needs these numbers to be able to extract at least $ 1.2 billion, which is the value of the annual interest on the $ 13 billion loan that Musk borrowed in order to finance part of the Twitter deal, and this amount is greater than Twitter’s profits for the entire year 2021.
Twitter and Musk’s harsh winter
This winter falls on the “bluebird”, heavy and harsh. The storms that started early will not calm down and the migration of users has not yet begun. Even after the closure of the accounts of some journalists and the threat of the European Union and human rights associations to Twitter because of this step, we did not see the severe bleeding of the tweeters, but this does not mean that Twitter users feel safe on the platform, and it does not mean that they do not try other platforms, which, if it happens, will be the inevitable end of a large platform.
However, there are important questions that the coming days and months may bring answers to, which are:
- Did Musk – who is famous for his economic intelligence – lose one of his most important deals?
- Is it a strategic move in a major war?
- Will the coming days show the war for which Musk sacrificed the Blue Bird to win?
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