Elon Musk Is Already Destroying Twitter

By Dustin Rowles | Social Media | October 31, 2022 |

By Dustin Rowles | Social Media | October 31, 2022 |

Remember when Dave Chappelle hosted SNL the week after TFG was elected President, and how he said that we should at least give the guy a chance, and see what he’s all about? I think many at the time — including President Obama — felt that the TFG could be tamed by the office. They were wrong.


When Elon Musk sent that letter to advertisers last week promising that Twitter would not become a “free-for-all-hellscape,” I thought ever-so-briefly that Musk could be tamed by capitalism. Twitter is a platform that relies on users to generate advertising revenue; if users aren’t happy, there’s no advertising revenue. If advertisers aren’t happy, there is no advertising revenue. It’s impossible to please everyone — no social network has ever done so — but cesspools are not profitable. It’s why 4Chan, one of the most trafficked sites in the world, struggles in some years to make enough money to pay for the server costs. Elon Musk had to take out a loan he will have to pay $1 billion a year just to service the debt. Twitter has never made $1 billion in profit in a single year (in fact, it’s only been profitable twice — in 2018 and 2019).

Surely, then, Musk will do what he can to attract more users, make those users happy, and not alienate advertisers, right? Day one wasn’t good — the use of the n-word increased by 500 percent, and I’m sure that antisemitism increased by just as much. Most of this, as Twitter has noted, came from a few white nationalist trolls who were testing the limits of Musk’s Twitter. Previously banned white nationalists who returned with new accounts were … banned again. So far, TFG’s ban hasn’t been lifted yet, either (Musk says that he’s putting together a committee of diverse voices to make decisions about banned or restricted accounts). As for all the layoffs? That’s just capitalism, isn’t it? Every new CEO probably thinks he or she can get more out of less.

Most of Musk’s initial actions sound like a guy who is being “tamed by the office,” so to speak. That lasted about two days. Then Musk started spreading wicked disinformation, amplifying a conspiracy theory that the man who attacked Paul Pelosi was a sex worker. He has since deleted the tweet without acknowledging or apologizing (beyond a bad joke meant to be at the NYTimes’ expense). The disinformation itself is bad; the fact that the owner of Twitter is amplifying it sends a message to the rest of Twitter that it’s OK to make up sh*t and spread it. It tells you what he will accept. It tells you that Elon Musk will accept a cesspool so long as he can continue to make bad jokes.

Meanwhile, his latest idea is apparently to charge as much as $20 for “verified” users to maintain their blue checkmarks. This is beyond dumb for a number of reasons. The “verified” users are, in many cases, the very people who attract other users to Twitter. It’s like asking a stand-up comedian to pay to perform, while all the audience members are allowed to watch for free.

More than that, however, is the fact that it will annihilate whatever value these blue checkmarks have. Media outlets might pay for them — particularly if there is a traffic benefit — but the average verified user would never. It’s not even about the money (although, it could reportedly cost more than a Netflix subscription); it’s the idea that someone might pay for status. Verified users will be dunked on and shamed. I suspect, too, that the blue checkmarks will stop being given out to authoritative accounts or celebrities, and handed out to anyone willing to shell out $240 a year. It’s like paying someone to run over your foot.

For the record, if every single verified user paid $20 a month for their dumb little checkmarks, it wouldn’t even cover 1/10 of the yearly debt Musk has to service, and we’d end up with a lot of white supremacists willing to pay $240 a year to increase their own status. Before long, I’m sure Elon would also start increasing and/or decreasing the reach of Twitter users based on whether they pay, which would further erode the already diminishing value of Twitter.

On the other hand, Musk is apparently considering bringing back Vine to compete with TikTok, which would be like re-releasing Morbius again. It won’t work, but the trolls will love it.