This October 27 marks one year since billionaire Elon Musk bought the social network Twitter, now renamed X. With constant updates, policy changes and in search of an “application for everything”, the also owner of Tesla has caused controversy worldwide. Some consider that the ‘App’ has improved; others believe it has become more “toxic” and “less useful.”
“The blue bird has been released,” billionaire Elon Musk published on October 27, 2022. Minutes earlier he had officially completed the purchase of Twitter for $44 billion. A year has passed since that purchase and the social network, now known as X, is not free of controversy due to the policies that Musk decided to implement.
One of the first controversies was the restoration of former US President Donald Trump’s account after the events that led to the storming of the Capitol in January 2021. Musk said that, under his power, freedom of expression would reign.
It began with a dismissal of a large majority of Twitter employees and the modifications began. Among it, the blue badge of a verified account. To obtain it, the profile had to meet certain requirements and went through a study by the platform. Now, Musk has introduced a payment system in which anyone can have a verified account if they pay the amount requested by the company.
By December 2022, the subscription service, Twitter Blue, was officially presented, which allows users who purchased it to have publications of up to 4,000 characters and videos of up to 60 minutes.
In July 2023 the image change came. The blue bird has died and the X, an obsession of the tycoon who has said letter or symbol in his entire line of business (SpaceX, Tesla model Little by little, he removed the words tweet and retweet and chose to publish, republish.
“It’s going to take me a while to say, ‘I’m jumping to , to consider it good or bad for me,” he added.
However, other people decided to move away from the app because of Musk’s policies and vision for .
“We haven’t seen X die, but we have seen it degenerate, deteriorate and become more toxic and less valuable, less useful,” social media strategist and commentator Matt Navarra told Euronews Next.
X figures, plummeting?
Web analytics company ‘SimilarWeb’ said Twitter traffic has seen an overall decline, even in the absence of Threads.
According to data obtained by ‘Washington Post‘, company X “is hemorrhaging advertisers and revenue.” For example, the number of people actively tweeting has fallen by 30%.
According to the Spanish newspaper ‘The confidential‘“The value of the company ranges between 4,000 and 5,000 million dollars”, compared to the 44,000 million dollars that Musk paid for it, which represents 90% less.
This is because many advertisers, who were hooked on the Twitter brand, decided to leave after the changes in the company. The media reports that, in this time, X has lost close to 13 million users.
According to a report from the Statista platform, Twitter had, in 2021, 362.4 million active monthly users worldwide. By 2022, it rises to 368.4 million, but by 2023 it drops to 352.9 million and, according to its projections, in 2024 it will remain at a similar number.
In their study, they warn that since Musk’s acquisition of the social network and the controversial measures applied “could stop growth expectations in their tracks.”
Did ‘fake news’ increase?
The newspaper ‘Le Monde’ published an article, signed by 28 journalists, researchers and university students and promoters of the #NoTwitterDay trend. The document denounces that Musk’s management is “a danger to democracy.”
“In the end, the situation seems to be getting worse month by month. More and more users find the Twitter environment extremely toxic, to the point that they decide to stop using the platform and turn to others. “Disinformation and illegal content in general continue to spread,” the article says.
What they ask is that Musk and his team cooperate with the European Commission and Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, who sent an urgent letter due to the disinformation that is shared on this network about the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“We have indications that your platform is being used to spread illegal content and disinformation in the European Union,” Breton wrote, asking for greater transparency “about what content is allowed under your terms and to consistently and diligently apply your own policies.” The document also asks that you take measures to mitigate misinformation and respond to these requirements as soon as possible. Otherwise, Breton warned that he could impose sanctions. Musk’s response was quick: “List the violations you allude to in X, so the public can see them.”
Our policy is that everything is open source and transparent, an approach that I know the EU supports.
Please list the violations you allude to on , so that the public can see them.
Merci beaucoup.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 10, 2023
Globally, another order has been launched. In the midst of a total Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip, the Internet in the enclave is down amid bombings, making it difficult for the inhabitants of the enclave to communicate with their people abroad, as well as the work of the journalists and other professions.
#StarlinkforGaza (Starlink for Gaza) is the trend that has marked the platform in recent hours. Musk also owns Starlink, a satellite internet service. So the global request has been for the tycoon to provide it in Gaza. However, Musk did not issue any response, despite the fact that he is usually very active on his own network.
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