Twitter has undergone massive institutional changes in 2022, and these changes have constantly earned mixed reactions from Twitter’s audience. Just days before the new year hits, the social media platform has rolled out its new feature showing view counts of tweets.
The new feature, aimed at being an additional social engagement metric, has received complaints about being messy, distracting and useless. In response, Twitter CEO Elon Musk says that they will “tidy up the [a]esthetics and add a setting to turn it off,” making it optional for users later on.
This is just one of the plans Musk has for Twitter. The mercurial CEO has overseen the introduction of several new Twitter features since he purchased the platform in late October, including Twitter's new paid-for-verification model. But as observed by many, rollouts have not been seamless.
Going forward, Musk claims that there will be voting for major policy changes on the digital platform, but such voting might only be limited to paid subscribers with a blue tick on their profiles. Previously, a blue tick was used as a badge of authenticity and was offered for free.
Twitter has been on a bumpy ride since Musk took over its ownership. Massive layoffs occurred, and the platform slowly lost ground in social media dominance against Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Clear policymaking under the new regime is yet to be implemented, which could affect how the overall algorithm of Twitter works for people.
In just a short span of time, the billionaire has already announced his plan to step down as the chief executive of Twitter once he finds a replacement. In accordance with his Twitter poll, he has stated that he would abide by the results and will only run the software and server teams once he finds his successor, who is unknown at the time of writing.
More than 10 million people voted in favor of his stepping down as “Chief Twit” while, on the other hand, a user suggested another digital acquisition — Twitter buying Substack — wherein Musk responded that he is “open to the idea.” This proposed merger could create massive competition for obsolete legacy corporate media if it happens.
