For everyone’s sake, Elon Musk is now the head and owner of Twitter. Let’s get that straight, okay? Now, what does that have to do with anything? Yesterday, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posted his first-ever article to Twitter’s acquired Revue newsletter platform, acquired last January, where he outlined a response to the recent ‘Twitter Files’ leaks. Through the supposed ‘leak’, Musk has been working with choice journalists to uncover the mistakes of past moderation actions taken by Twitter.

Long story short, Dorsey carefully offered a defense for his former colleagues amid questions of their activity, once again pointing to a decentralized platform model which, according to him, could be pivotal in limiting bias, misinterpretation, and harm. 

You Done Pissed of The Boss!

For lack of a better term, Elon officially got ticked, mainly because of this line perhaps: 

“The current attacks on my former colleagues could be dangerous and doesn’t solve anything.” 

Whatever the reason, something really rocked Musk of his Twitter throne, announcing in an email sent just 24 hrs after Dorsey’s, informing all Revue users that the platform is shutting down in a month’s time. Here’s what Revue replied with:

“From January 18, 2023, it will no longer be possible to access your Revue account. On that date, Revue will shut down and all data will be deleted. This has been a hard decision because we know Revue has a passionate user base, made up of people like you.” 

Again, Twitter acquired Revue just last year, hoping to facilitate new forms of revenue generation for creators, as part of its broader push to build more monetization tools. Clearly, that’s not part of Musk’s ‘Twitter 2.0’ plans, or at least he glossed over the fairly recent fact that Revue was now Twitter-owned until he saw that Dorsey post, that is. Meanwhile, the other consideration is that all of this is just coincidence, that Twitter was going to shut down Revue anyway, with Dorsey’s post being somewhat the final ‘nail in the coffin’. 

Then again, Twitter also shut down a Twitter profile that had been tracking Musk’s private flights, which he swore he wouldn’t do, even using it as an example of his commitment to free speech. At least in Musk’s eyes, the definition of ‘Free Speech’ is as liquid as water – flowing. There are reports Musk has been pushing staff to prioritize the removal of scam Tweets that bear his likeness, along with suggestions that he told staff to remove videos of him being booed at a Dave Chapelle show earlier this week.

The Wrap

Ironically, Musk himself has begun sharing COVID conspiracies and transphobic perspectives. While both are not necessarily illegal, based on what Musk said will be the acceptable threshold in the app, the same things would not have flown so smoothly before. In short, the new ‘Twitter 2.0’ is basically a Twitter spun around Musk’s idea of ‘Free Speech’, which isn’t as free as people would’ve hoped for, along with all that that entails.

Sources 

https://bit.ly/3Pz0AmH