Elon Musk Risks Sending Twitter into Death Spiral

Nearly a year after Elon Musk made an offer to buy Twitter, critics argue that the changes he is implementing spell doom for the social media platform—most prominently the recently-announced alterations to its verification of users.

As the tech entrepreneur looks to cement his leadership of the social media platform, Twitter recently announced it would be removing verification ticks from users who hold them and do not want to pay the $8-a-month subscription it is now charging individuals.

While Musk has framed the move as a democratization of the platform, it has received criticism for the potential for misinformation and the impact it may have on some of its highly regarded content producers. However, though experts say it is emblematic of Musk's at-times rocky leadership of the company, they argue it will not change the financial issues that pre-exist Musk's ownership.

The End of Twitter's 'Legacy' Program

On March 23, Twitter Verified announced that from April 1 it would be winding down its "legacy" program by removing blue tick marks from accounts that had received verification for belonging to notable individuals prior to Musk's takeover.

However, many such legacy marks remain in place as of April 3, though the description on them now does not differentiate between legacy accounts and those that have paid for the mark.

While Twitter Blue aims to raise revenue and allow anybody to purchase bonafide status, some legacy users have pledged not to pay for their ticks. On Thursday, the New York Times—which would have had to pay $1,000 a month as a business—said it would not buy a blue badge for any of its accounts, which have 55 million followers, nor would it pay for individual journalists to do so.

Critics have argued the move will mean users will no longer be able to use the ticks for their primary purpose: to differentiate verified accounts from impersonators.

"Congratulations, you made verified pointless," Aaron Alford, an esports writer, wrote in response to Twitter's announcement. "The only value of Twitter Blue now is that someone might mistake you for a person of importance."

Evan Armstrong, a former venture capitalist turned technology writer, described the legacy feature supposedly being phased out as a "funny workaround" to the issue of misinformation. He told Newsweek: "The old system I don't think was necessarily good, but it was understood. It's so confusing now, I would imagine there is going to be people impersonating or making fakes."

At the same time legacy blue ticks are being phased out, Twitter has changed how the platform's feeds work, so that the default feed will only include posts from paid-for blue tick accounts and those a user already follows, rather than posts that may be of interest to the user.

Not only could this mean that unverified posts are less able to go viral, but also that those who choose not to pay for verification status may have less reach on the platform. As such, verification may become less about user identity and more of a marketing tool to extend audience impact.

"So NOT having one of your s***ty paid-checkmarks will become more respected than having one," Mark Hughes, a screenwriter, told Twitter Verified. "I'm sure that's going to work out swell for you."

But Armstrong argued that this will have limited impact on the content being produced on the site. "As long as there are users on the platform, creators will be there, because the reason social media platforms win is because they're good at sending demand your way," he said.

The Future of Twitter

He also did not believe that there would be a movement of users away from Twitter to other social media platforms. "I don't really see that happening," Armstrong said. "The New York Times is still posting away, whether they have a check mark or not."

Musk has signaled his intention with his takeover of Twitter to return it to growth. According to Business of Apps, a trade publication, the company's revenue declined 11 percent year-on-year in 2022, 90 percent of which came from advertising.

Additionally, according to the New York Times, he has cut the Twitter workforce to less than 2,000 from 7,500 when he took over.

Armstrong suggested that the Twitter Blue overhaul was an attempt to diversify the company's revenue streams away from advertising, noting a recent paid-for subscription introduced by Snapchat, which has found 2 million subscribers.

"Will the verification product make a material difference in the financials of the company? No, at least not for a while. Not until they materially alter the value proposition," he added. "I doesn't really move the needle either way from a revenue perspective, or from a user's perspective."

Armstrong said that his opinion that Twitter was "probably screwed" had not changed in the year since Musk's acquisition began. While he felt Musk was "doing an objectively bad job with the company—it's a very valuable asset that he's doing really poorly with," he said the verification row was a "distraction" from Twitter's advertising products that "need to be fixed."

Twitter has been dogged by stories concerning a lack of innovation in its advertising and has arguably lost out to its rivals as a result. In 2022, the company generated $4.4 billion in revenue, compared to the $116.6 billion Facebook made in the same period.

"The reason these platforms are so magical is the better the targeting, the better the ads are; the better the content is, the more time you spend [on the platform]; the more ads they serve, the better the targeting. It's just a really virtuous growth cycle," Armstrong said.

Newsweek reached out to Twitter for comment via email on Monday.