Former blue-check media types and others who previously enjoyed the spoils the checkmark provided under the previous ownership aren't thrilled with how things are going now that Twitter is called X and is owned by Elon Musk. Here are a couple of recent examples:
I'm leaving Twitter, for the indefinite future. The reason is simple: this site is becoming more like Gab every day. It's a font of hatred, lies, and harassment. And while it's never been great, at least it had its uses. No longer. At least not for me. /1
— David French (@DavidAFrench) October 27, 2023
Ok. Twitter is a cesspool today and it’s only 8am. I’m going to start mentally preparing my Twitter exit.
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@AdamKinzinger) October 28, 2023
Follow me on threads adam_kinzinger or Post
However, as the saying goes, one person's trash is another person's treasure.
Twitter/X under @elonmusk just keeps getting better and better 🥰 https://t.co/GhHvCgaLc3
— CCP IS ASSHOE (@CCPISASSH0E) October 28, 2023
Which brings us to a great thread.
What's really going on here? @DanFriedman81 has a good explanation:
Media figures all seem to agree that Twitter has gotten much worse since Elon Musk took over. If you aren’t seeing what they’re seeing, it’s because your experience of this website has historically been very different from theirs. https://t.co/QVBlQFrp2j
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
The former Elite Blue Check Brigade under previous ownership were coddled, promoted and protected, and things have changed:
Prior to Musk’s Twitter, a curated group of about 500,000 users out of Twitter’s 368 million users had blue check status. The message many of them broadcast was that this wasn’t very important, but it absolutely was, and it’s the reason they had a special experience on Twitter.
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
First of all, blue checks get — and have always gotten — significantly more favorable treatment from the algorithm that populates your timeline. You are more likely to see tweets from people you follow who have blue checks.
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
Second of all, blue checks got to shape the discourse. Replies from blue checks go directly underneath the original post, above all replies from unverified users. This gives you a lot more exposure.
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
David Leavitt, a notorious Twitter ghoul who became famous for calling police on a Target store manager who refused to sell him a $100 electric toothbrush for one cent built a platform of 400,000 followers by having a blue check he got from a media organization that fired him and…
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
The other thing that verified users had was a special tab that showed them only responses from other verified users. When media figures describe pre-Musk Twitter as feeling like a cocktail party, it’s because they only looked at their verified interactions, and verification was…
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
That bubble has been burst and many of the former Elite Blue-Check Brigade members don't like it.
So, Twitter for media professionals prior to Musk’s acquisition of the company provided them with a megaphone to broadcast to a large audiences, and also a screen so they only had to read content from other designated special people.
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
Musk stripped verification from most of the legacy verified accounts and sold verification to everyone else for $8 per month, and suddenly the verified mentions were filled with riffraff and many of the special people weren’t showing up in them anymore.
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
In addition, top replies to viral tweets were no longer guaranteed to come from important media people with the right opinions. Suddenly, the people who had controlled and shaped the discourse could no longer dictate which topics trended, which tweets were at the top of the…
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
If you were used to having a guaranteed large reach on your content, and expected that your top replies would always be friendly, and if you only saw interactions from your special friends, then Musk’s changes definitely ruined Twitter for you. That was his objective.
— Daniel Friedman (@DanFriedman81) October 28, 2023
And obviously, that objective has been met.
It isn’t more hate filled, the “special” people just had to get into the pool with the normies. https://t.co/nsGpkLOVBm
— Bleu Cheque (@VERBAL_CHANCLA) October 28, 2023
A good thread about why people like David French and Adam Kinzinger think Twitter/X has gone downhill.
— Erika Stephens, Free Speech Enthusiast (@BalkyHillMama) October 28, 2023
For me, it has gotten better. I no longer wake up every day wondering which of my favorite accounts has been nuked.
And leftist trolls don’t seem as emboldened as they once did. https://t.co/Vktr36dDFH
Also have you noticed that many of the people who say they're leaving X never quite seem to actually get around to doing that?
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