Elon Musk recently took over the Twitter with a not so agreeable change on the platform. New CEO of concerned social media platform looked super charged after holding the position and immediately introduced multiple changes in handling it. According to the information, Twitter Inc. will charge $8 on its blue tick users as its monthly subscription. They have decided to provide their ‘verified’ badge to only the users who are ready to pay the price. Musk’s tweet read, ‘Twitter’s current lords and peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month’. In addition to his tweet, he cleared that charges will be adjusted as per the country proportionate to purchasing power parity.
The decision received several doubts and criticism for undemanded adjustments. While people are making noise on social media platforms regarding the new move, Musk is quite clear in his head of his revenue model. From the beginning, he expressed about his new acquisition to make money and less dependency on advertisements. It has not arrived in India yet, but it is already available for its users in selected countries including Canada, Australia, US, UK and New Zealand. The price is not revealed for users in India but is specified that soon India will also be on the list through Musk’s tweet. He responded to when the verification subscription is coming to India, ‘hopefully, less than a month’.
Dimple Sen is a post graduate student of journalism in India and is quite active on Twitter. Posting personal updates to professional, she utilizes the platform by expressing her opinions on certain subjects. As she is on the edge of getting verified, she is hesitant to carry it forward or not. She said, ‘Earlier, I was excited and was counting days to get that blue tick on twitter but now after getting familiar with the new rule introduced by Elon Musk, I am not sure I want it now’. Further she explained her reason saying, ‘Right to Freedom of speech and expression easily gets manipulated accordingly. There is no such specification around it that becomes problematic for the people. Social media platforms are the best medium that helps to express and exchange ideas, opinions publicly with zero formalities. And twitter is a space where I enjoy being myself. But I am totally against the idea of paying subscription to the platform just because people want to read the content I am writing or sharing.’
Dimple believes monetizing social media platform will not promote the narrative of ‘power to people’ but will easily convince them to leave it. India with 1.4 billion population, has its 47 per cent of them on social media platforms. And surprisingly only 23.6 million Indians are on Twitter. There could be a possibility of a downfall in twitter users in India due to the new mandate, suggested experts. Dimple shares her context of the story and told EAT news, ‘I am a college student. I am not earning at the moment. There are some people on twitter who have gained popularity or the attention at a very young age. Now paying Twitter for their hard work just for getting the ‘blue recognition’ makes no sense. This is like limiting people to communicate or to access Twitter at a certain point. I am completely disappointed and not happy.’
Meanwhile Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) mentioned about Twitter charging $8 monthly for blue tick in his recent media briefing and said, ‘We are not aware of the process of paid subscription. We will wait and will take decision according to the contours of this service and when it happens’. It hasn’t arrived India yet and Dimple is thankful for it. ‘Until it doesn’t arrive I am happy and relieved. I won’t stop posting because people like my content. But I am planning to leave the platform soon because there is no point in supporting something that does not feel right personally’, said Dimple.
Musk’s idea of engaging with users and asking suggestions on Twitter is a required action, as per experts. Nidhi Malhotra, a social media expert said, ‘If the CEO of a particular platform is asking directly for the suggestions, this means he is increasing the reach and wants to have direct conversation with its audience. It is always recommended to the people holding higher positions as it helps in understanding the mindset of the targeted people plus, we get new ideas. There are glitches and corrections that needs to be taken care of, but are overlooked. Users who deals with it daily can make us understand better’. Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, he is coming with unexpected decisions as Twitter fired its 90 per cent of Indian employees under the part of its global reconstructing exercise.
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