Bye, Bye Birdie: Why I (and Many Others) Have Flown the Twitter Nest
It’s been quite a journey. After more than 26,500 tweets (mostly retweets of pithy insights from others and an occasional chirp of my own), I’ve decided to leave my 9,000+ followers and jump out of the Twitter nest.
Apparently, I’m not alone. According to MIT Technology Review (November 3, 2022), over a million users have deactivated their accounts or been suspended since Elon Musk acquired Twitter. The Guardian (December 13, 2022) predicts that the number of global monthly users will fall by more than 32 million in total by 2025.
Most Twitter employees have been kicked out of the nest via layoffs and terminations or have flown off on their own. The staff has decreased by over 80% from around 7,500 to 1,500 employees since Musk took over. And, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have stopped promoting on the platform, according to Media Matters.
Leaving Twitter wasn’t an easy decision. There have been many positive aspects and benefits that I appreciated:
- Twitter provided almost immediate information on local, regional, national, and international events and trends as they occurred. It was a fast and mostly reliable source of news and opinion.
- It offered a huge network of neighborly compatriots if you wanted a civilized discourse or “Patriots” if you wanted to fight about anything. I learned a lot about (in)tolerance and hatred.
- It gave me a sense of community, reassurance, and a reality check that I wasn’t the only one confused and outraged by the madness during the past 6 years. It helped me feel connected to the rest of the world in a way that other platforms hadn’t. I was able to amplify others’ voices and spread positive messages and encouragement.
However, there were also several reasons why I, and others, chose to leave Twitter including online harassment, time management issues, mental health concerns, privacy worries, political polarization, unproductive debates, and the anxiety associated with the fear of missing out (FOMO). Such factors may contribute to the ongoing exodus of users from the platform, despite Musk’s takeover and his promise to improve Twitter’s performance.
Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO first announced his bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, with the noble goals of ridding the platform of spam bots and protecting free speech.
“This is just my strong, intuitive sense that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk said at a TED conference on the day he made his offer. “I don’t care about the economics at all.”
The man is undoubtedly a genius and many of us were hopeful that Twitter would thrive and become a better platform under his leadership. However, something seems amiss. Please bear with me as I try to explain my reasoning.
Chutes and Ladders & Dinosaurs
I’m feeling like I don’t understand the game anymore. Trying to follow the vicissitudes of CEO Musk’s decisions can be as challenging as playing a game of Chutes and Ladders with my five-year-old grandson, who keeps changing the rules and characters.
The game may start with the original board and pieces, but soon the little guy gets bored and replaces the cardboard characters with tiny plastic herbivorous dinosaurs that struggle to climb up the ladders. To add more excitement, larger carnivorous dinos take up strategic positions on the board, ready to devour anyone who dares to cross their paths.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the 6000 missing Twitter employees were eaten by dinosaurs; that would be nonsense. However, that makes about as much sense to me as firing the majority of your staff when you intend to introduce a new user verification system, redesign the API structure (Application Programming Interface) that allows other programs to communicate and play nicely with each other, and plan a major Twitter expansion into 35 countries.
Who are you?
Another confusing aspect of the Twitter takeover (at least for me) is the renaming of the company. Apparently, the “w” in the Twitter sign on the company’s San Francisco office building has been informally removed (painted over), leaving the renamed business “Titter”. Does that make users “tits” (which are, after all, still birds) or “titterers”? Just kidding.
Officially, the social media giant, formerly known as Twitter, Inc., has merged into a privately held corporation called X Corp., according to a court filing in California. While the company no longer exists under its old name, most of its proposed platform tools still use “Twitter” as a moniker.
All kidding aside, who are you? I really wanna know.
Check Please?
Twitter announces a new multicolored verification system
Twitter’s first attempt to redesign the user verification system did not go well. After a somewhat confusing roll-out in November of Twitter’s Blue Verified system where everybody was supposed to pay $7.99 for a blue checkmark, chaos ensued.
As of December 13, 2022, Twitter revamped its plan to rollout a new multicolored verification system where companies would get a gold checkmark, government officials would get a grey checkmark, and the blue checkmark would be dedicated to individuals even if they are not celebrities. That means the blue checkmark would be used with legacy verified accounts and folks who buy into Twitter’s proposed $8 per month paid plan.
Am I Blue?
In April 2023, Twitter officially removed legacy blue checkmarks that previously indicated that an account was legitimate, verified, and notable.
As numerous celebrities (actors, musicians, sports figures) and businesses spoke out to say they wouldn’t pay the $8 fee, it appeared that removing so many blue checks would be easier said than done. Instead, Twitter merely updated the text accompanying a blue check to make it unclear whether someone was verified for being notable, or for paying for Twitter Blue.
Checkmarks would be maintained only for those who had a subscription to Twitter Blue. The change would be part of a wider push for Twitter to gate previously free features, and bundle new ones, under the $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription, which costs $11 on iOS and Android devices.
Twitter officially brought back the Twitter Blue subscription on December 12, 2022, starting in half a dozen countries (US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan) with plans for a major expansion. This plan would make the social network’s subscription service available in more than 35 countries across the world including Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Romania, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus.
In addition to the relaunch of Twitter Blue, the company also began rolling out a new offering called Blue for Business that adds a gold checkmark to company accounts.
Twitter toyed with grey-colored official checkmarks for notable accounts such as companies and politicians. But within hours of the launch, Elon Musk killed it. A company official clarified that the grey “Official” labels are still going out as part of the new Twitter Blue product.
If you’re confused about all the checkmarks, you’re not alone. Here’s a quick guide on what each checkmark and badge means on Twitter. But be forewarned, this information may be obsolete by the time I’m done writing this sentence.
For the time being, I’m checking out of Twitter… or whatever it’s calling itself. I’m confused, tired, disappointed, and out of f*cks to give. In the meantime, I’m going to explore some of those other social media platforms. I’ll let you know where I land!
