Elon Musk on Twitter fighting with stars and advertisers for paid blue ticks – Corriere.it

Exodus of operational managers (in addition to the bosses fired in the trunk on the day of the change of ownership); (temporary) exodus of advertisers (such as General Motors); exodus of users who do not want to remain in the social network ofrichest man in the world o contest his decision to charge ($ 8 per month in the US, but the fee will differ from country to country) blue check markthe blue check that certifies the identity of the account holders.

Rocket start but uphill that of Elon Musk in his new role as owner and sole director of Twitter, which is no longer listed on the stock exchange. The new men he brought with six few old men he trusts are trying to stop the onslaught of the trolls who take advantage of the transition phase and the review of the moderation system to throw falsehood, slander, hatred on the platform. A very serious problem in these days of American election eve.

Just waiting to understand how the filters who eliminate unacceptable messages from the platform now that the self-styled absolutist of the free speechthe Ipgone of the largest advertising agencies in the world, has suggested its clients to suspend your Twitter ads. Musk, that today gets 90 percent of its revenue from advertising of the social network, courts companies, but at the same time tries to increase other revenues, especially with subscriptions.

After the first wave of show business personalities like Shonda Rhimescreator of television series such as Grey’s Anatomy or the singer Sara Bareilles (3 million followers) who left slamming the door for ideological reasons, now Musk struggling with other insurrectional outbreaks. As well as with the protests of characters such as the basketball player
LeBron James
or
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
star of the American radical left, he has to deal with the revolt of more or less famous users who do not want to pay a monthly subscription for the certification of their identity, believing that they are in credit, not in debt, with Twitter. Cases like those of the writer Stephen King (6.9 million followers) or pollster Nate Silver (3.5 million): Believing that Twitter should be paying them for the traffic from their product that feeds the social network’s ad revenue, they say that if the company does not think again, they will go away.

Musk holds out, explains that he needs income other than advertising, but then treats them like spoiled rich people and throws, as we told yesterday, populist slogans. Evidently he is betting on the fact that those who have moved a large part of their public life to their network are unlikely to pull the plug. To go where, then? Returning to Facebook, screwed into the spiral of a very serious crisis? Looking for new shores at the risk of losing the bulk of the followers in the transition?

But the entrepreneur is already thinking of something else. He promises that a portion of the new revenues will go to reward the producers of content placed on his network and the Washington Post publish the text of a project called Paywalled Video which should become a reality within a few weeks: the ability for anyone to post paid videos. Those who want to see them will have to pay 1, 2 or 5 dollars that Twitter will forward to the authors with the Stripe system, withholding a percentage. Another step in the direction of a transformation of Twitter (also) into editorial platform.