What happened?

Twitter announced on Friday that it was laying off “about 50%” of its nearly 7,500 employees worldwide, a week after the platform was acquired by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.

“About 50% of the workforce will be affected” by layoffs occurring at the California company, according to documents that have reached the press, confirming the intention of the new owner to restructure the company in his image and likeness.

The owner of SpaceX and Tesla, who bought Twitter for $44 billion, has already dissolved the company’s board of directors, fired its CEO and other executives.

Layoffs also began to be reported within a week, but not on this scale. But not only the number of layoffs was surprising, but also how they happened.

Then?

It was a surprise. It all started when thousands of Twitter employees were asked to stay at home after the temporary office closure.

While they were at home, a wave of layoffs followed, and the California company communicated its decision to every employee via email.

“As previously announced, Twitter is cutting its staff to improve the health of the company. These decisions are never easy and we are sorry to write to let you know that your role on Twitter has been affected. Today (Friday) is your last day of work,” reads one message sent to employees.

Before then, however, some workers had already discovered they had been fired, using the platform itself to say goodbye to their co-workers.

“I don’t have a job,” wrote former employee Blake Herzinger, for example, while others reported losing access to company servers and email accounts.

But doesn’t buying mean more money?

Not necessary. It is recalled that Musk refused to buy and was forced to move on by court order, since he already had a preliminary agreement. And to finance the Twitter purchase, Musk heavily borrowed from the company, whose financial health was already fragile, posting significant losses in the first two quarters of the year.

To complete the purchase, the tycoon took out $13 billion in loans — and here’s the key part — that Twitter would have to pay for, not him.

The billionaire also sold about $15.5 billion worth of Tesla shares and pledged his automaker’s bonds as collateral for other $12.5 billion in loans.

Overall, the layoffs will mean a savings of $400 million a year, the company confirmed today. Therefore, it was also mentioned in the firing letters that Twitter was going through an “incredibly difficult” moment. “We understand that this will affect many of the people who have made valuable contributions to the development of Twitter, but unfortunately this action is necessary to ensure the company’s future success.”

And now?

Times do seem “incredibly challenging” for Twitter, partly because of the current situation, partly because Musk immediately began making changes to the company.

It’s just that even before the purchase, Musk was making promises to make Twitter a social network with more freedom of speech, which, given the current scenario of political polarization, especially in the US, seemed to mean less control over speech, inflammatory or even hateful.

In addition, Musk offered to restore blocked accounts, for example, former US President Donald Trump – we recall that the Republican magnate was ousted shortly after his supporters invaded the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Musk immediately said that he would form a committee to evaluate future Twitter usage policies, especially with respect to content moderation and the aforementioned reinstatement of suspended accounts. Coincidence or not, when making a purchase observed burst of publications using sexist or racist language.

In addition, the need to quickly obtain funding to close the social network’s financial hole has led Musk to run into proposals that are poorly received by a significant percentage of users. Most controversial is the possible launch of an eight-dollar-a-month subscription for users who want to verify their account, among other perks.

What is the problem?

Twitter’s current identity verification system is free – to get the blue badge next to your name, you need to verify your identity to the social network’s team.

However, this service is only available to public figures whose identity must be protected, from politicians, doctors, researchers and journalists to artists and celebrities. In essence, it is, for example, a way for anyone to create an account while pretending to be the President of the United States.

Where does it affect me?

Musk resorted to the argument that this system, on the one hand, creates an “elite” in the Twitter community, and on the other hand, allows the spread of bots and fake accounts, claiming that he encourages the average user with this subscription. continue checking. But your solution could create even more problems.

As Vox explains in this article, the proposed new verification system only requires payment, not requiring identity verification. So eventually anyone can impersonate someone else if they pay eight dollars a month.

Compounding the problem, this new system also ensures that those who subscribe to a subscription are prioritized in search—that is, their tweets appear before tweets from unverified accounts—and in replies in threads that are typically generated between conversations.

this is cocktail this could mean, at worst, spreading fake accounts spreading misinformation pretending to be real due to the verification system, or, at best, creating a system just as unequal to the existing one, only promoting unscrupulous users who pay for the privilege.

In any case, even if you don’t have a Twitter account, it can affect your life in more unpredictable ways than you might think, as most political communication is done through this platform these days – and that’s where a lot of the news starts. Suffice it to recall the influence that Donald Trump had during the period when he still had an account on this social network.

And these changes can be counterproductive, even financially.

Because?

Faced with this combination of increased hate speech on the platform, with the possibility that a new verification system could completely change the dynamic on the platform, major companies such as General Motors and Volkswagen have suspended their Twitter ads.

Ads are Twitter’s main source of income, and Musk is trying to reassure people by making sure the platform doesn’t become “everybody’s hell.”

But today, set a new goal, criticizing “activist groups who are putting pressure on advertisers even though nothing has changed regarding content moderation and that we have done our best to appease them,” he tweeted today. “This is really crazy! They are trying to destroy free speech in the United States,” he added.

While chaos promises to continue to rage on Twitter, users are already turning to other social networks: Mastodon, for example, has grown to 655,000 users this week..