Twitter, recently rebranded X, is floundering. In the quarters following Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter has seen the worst revenue rates in years. Ad revenue has plummeted 50%, and in July the company was announced to still be cash-flow negative. Even greater has been the blow to content quality: moderation has oscillated wildly between reflecting Musk’s mission for “free speech”—seeing the unbanning of accounts like former president Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—and the suspension of journalists, accused of doxxing Musk, amongst them reporters who wrote critically on him.
In the current turbulence of journalism on Palestine and Israel, X has also been cited by publications for faltering as a reporting tool. On October 18, Reuters published examples of misinformation spread on X about events in the region. These included tweets by a fake Al Jazeera journalist reporting they had a video of a Hamas missile landing on the Al Ahli hospital, and videos of figures like Vladimir Putin with falsified subtitles addressing the events.
Multiple factors have played into X’s gradual decay. Following Musk’s takeover, changes have caused both the company and platform to be viewed with declining credibility. Musk laid off nearly half the company’s payroll in November 2022, shortly after acquisition. This caused dismay amongst employees, and the lack of notice before the layoff even caused a few to take legal action against X. The layoffs also damaged X’s ability to coordinate its media image—an article by Axiom indicates Twitter’s communications department barely existed following the wave of removals. By March 20, 2023, NPR reported that X’s press email came online only to auto-respond to all questions with a poop emoji. In July 2023, a month after Linda Yaccarino took over as X CEO from Musk, this was replaced by another auto-response: “We’ll get back to you soon.” This still leaves the press unable to coordinate responses from the company.
Platform credibility has also taken a serious hit after Musk. The current lack of content control on X could be seen beginning as far back as Musk’s acquisition. Brookings reported then that a flood of slurs and hate speech hit the platform, seemingly testing its renewed claims about free speech. The immediate flood of misinformation has been proliferated by multiple factors. Verification on X has been complicated by X Premium (previously known as Twitter Blue), which allows users to purchase the blue checkmark previously used to authenticate notable public figures. Instead, a variety of symbols and checkmarks are now used, indicating different levels of authenticity.
Huffpost has also cited the recent addition of account monetization as contributing towards disinformation. To be eligible for X’s ads revenue sharing program, an account must meet certain popularity requirements and be subscribed to X Premium. According to Huffpost this provides “an economic incentive for amplifying emotionally charged material, even if it’s fake or misleading,” something especially dangerous in the current landscape of crisis. BBC journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh illustrated the unprecedented nature of X’s current state, saying “there’s always plenty of misinformation during major events [on Twitter]. But the deluge of false posts in the last two days, many boosted via Twitter Blue, is something else.”
A Pew Research Center study in 2021 indicated that Twitter was an important source of news to its users. A report in November of that year stated that overall, 23% of Americans used Twitter, and that 69% of those got news from the site. As the quality of information X degrades, users may have to find other alternatives for getting their news. X alternatives which have gained significance include Threads—which was developed by Meta in July 2023—and Mastodon—a 2016 app which has gone from 2.5 million users in November 2022, to 10.04 million in March 2023 according to Statista. But in the absence of a singular app performing X’s function, the relatively unique on-the-ground facilitated by the platform may be harmed.
Overall, throughout its 15 or so year lifespan, Twitter has been a valuable tool for direct reporting in a world where being informed is increasingly important. X, however, hasn’t necessarily served that same role. It remains to be seen whether X will be able to salvage its reputation, content quality, and ability to provide users with valuable information. Yet, looking at things as they are now, the course of action seems to be to have a moment of silence for the platform, and start replacing it with better alternatives.
