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Twitter: Musk continues to lay off employees

22.2.2023

Translation: machine translated

Twitter continues to lay off dozens of employees. Nevertheless, there are constant innovations on the platform. Mark Zuckerberg is also introducing one of them to Meta.

Almost four months ago, Elon Musk took over the short message service Twitter. Heads were already rolling in the first few days of his leadership: high-ranking managers, individual employees and even entire teams had to leave their posts.

After around a month Musk gave the all-clear internally: The wave of redundancies was over. However, the billionaire has apparently not kept this promise. According to the American tech magazine "The Verge", there have been at least three major rounds of redundancies at Twitter since November. Musk also repeatedly fired individuals in between.

However, dozens of employees from the sales and development departments were made redundant last week. Apparently, the employees affected worked in the advertising sector, with which Musk is currently very unhappy.

According to a report from advertising research, Twitter's advertising revenue has plummeted since Musk's takeover. He has relaxed the content rules for posts, which is why more extreme articles can now be seen on the platform. An environment that advertisers tend to avoid.

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New feeds, end for third-party apps and "Twitter Blue"

Although events are no longer as fast-paced as they were in the first few weeks after the takeover, there are still constant innovations at Twitter. The "Follow me" and "For you" feeds have been available on the homepage since January. The latter serves users tweets from accounts and topics they follow, as well as recommended tweets.

Since January, it has also no longer been possible to view Twitter via third-party apps. This is because the platform has blocked access to its API. Popular tools such as Tweetbot, Fenix or Twitterific no longer work.

The biggest innovation so far, however, remains the early announcement of the relaunch of the paid subscription "Twitter Blue", which offers access to premium functions such as editing published tweets. The blue Twitter tick now comes with this plan if the account fulfils certain conditions. However, the blue tick from the past will remain in place.

New tick colours have also been added: Gold ones for companies, grey ones for states or official organisations. There are now also badges that show that a certain account is associated with an organisation on Twitter - for example, state media.

..and badges on Twitter. — New checkmarks...

Meta follows suit

The relaunch of the Twitter paid subscription has rubbed off on the social media environment. On Sunday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also announced a paid subscription for Facebook and Instagram. It is called "Meta Verified" and offers checkmarks for verification, protection against identity fraud and better support for 12 to 15 US dollars per month.

Despite the decimated number of employees, Musk's Twitter seems to be inspiring the competition from Silicon Valley. It remains to be seen whether the billionaire will be able to realise his bigger plans with this workforce. At the World Government Summit, Musk emphasised once again that he has had an "app for everything" in mind for some time. This should bring together payments, information and all digital activities in general. Twitter could be an accelerator for this, he says.

Musk wants to run the social media company himself this year. The company should be stable by the end of the year. Despite many interested parties on Twitter, there are currently no known candidates for the executive chair in San Francisco.

Cover image: Shutterstock, Phil Pasquini

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Coya Vallejo Hägi

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coya.vallejo@digitecgalaxus.ch

«I want it all! The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles!» – these words spoken by an iconic American TV celebrity could have been mine. It's a take on life I also apply to my job. What does this mean in concrete terms? That every story has its charm; no matter how small, large, exciting or trivial. The more eclectic the mix, the better.

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