Another Twitter Change by Elon Musk - AI Regulation?
I joined Twitter in 2013 as part of my Wealthy Affiliate training in Social Media Marketing. At first I didn't like Twitter and its restriction on how many characters can be in a tweet. Eventually I grew to like it and found it better than Facebook.
Just like Facebook, Twitter has its problems, even after Elon Musk bought Twitter. No one likes changes to their routine, especially when it works well for you, but sometimes change is good and sometimes bad. I think this change is both.
ELON MUSK MAKES A RADICAL CHANGE
Ever since Musk bought Twitter and started making changes that made using it more difficult at times, many of its long-term members are starting to leave. I think Musk underestimated how his changes to Twitter would make its users not want to tweet.
When I joined Twitter, I remember Kyle saying that using social media is a great way to get your niche website some faster traffic for free. However getting traffic from search engine results, is still the best way, even if it takes longer to see results.
Some of the early desires by Musk, like getting rid of bots, I was in favor of. But this latest change, restricting users to only viewing a set amount of tweets per day, will hurt everyone. I think this change is to force people to become verified subscribers.
Hopefully these changes will be Temporary and NOT become permanent.
Elon Musk claims that he has made this change to prevent extreme levels of "Data Scraping" and "System Manipulation." Data scraping can negatively impact the performance of the targeted website, in this case, Twitter. However, there is more.
It was reported that Musk is also upset with the data scraping done by companies and organizations collecting huge amounts of data to train AI, Artificial Intelligence. This scraping is putting too much load on Twitter and causing a bad User Experience.
Remember what Elon Musk said recently about AI at Paris VivaTech. When asked about his views on AI, he replied, "There is a real danger for digital super-intelligence having negative consequences." Then he added, "I am in favor of AI regulation.
Could this change be a way for Musk to apply his form of AI regulation? I don't see how limiting the viewing of tweets will solve this problem. This makes me feel that it is just another way to get people to subscribe for $8.00/month or $84.00/year.
Many of you probably do not use Twitter, and you should - even with these changes. It is still a good social media platform to find people in your niche. So what do you think? Is Elon Musk doing this to thwart AI, to gain more subscribers or both?
Recent Comments
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Changes are good sometimes, and I have been reading a lot lately about Elon Musk and lots of complaints about the changes. The numbers for the restrictions of reading tweets is still a lot of tweets to read. Who reads 6,000 tweets in a day? That is a lot of reading on one platform, at most I read a day is Maybe 20.
I believe only influencers could use Twitter for long periods of time but doubt 6,000 reads is ever breached. I think Musk made this temporary change to seek out bots collecting data for AI and putting guardrails on the process.
Hello Rob,
Thank you for your blog post. I hope that you are doing well and business is good.
I am like you, Rob, I must admit that I like Twitter, I find it a thousand times easier to use than Facebook and much less clunky! I guess I have used Twitter since around 2008.
I hope the changes that Elon Musk mentions will be temporary. I do believe that he is trying to clean up things. I also believe he is trying to make the platform more fair for people. In other words, a platform that everyone can use, whatever their political views, within reason.
Over the last two or three days, I have noticed that I don't see the regular tweets that I like to see. I'm seeing a lot of tweets from people that I don't follow, they're actually tweets that followers have retweeted. So I actually have to carry out a search to see the tweets that I want to see, which certainly isn't ideal.
Have a great day.
Roy
Your last point about seeing tweets by people you don't follow is a problem I hope he fixes, but I think this was a problem of his own making. Either way Twitter is still my favorite when it comes to sharing affiliate links.
Hello Rob,
Most of the time, I see the tweets from the people that I want to, it's a problem that I have only just seen. However, I believe that some people have suffered from this for a long time. Let's hope it gets fixed! I'm guessing there is probably a lot of experimentation going on at the moment at Twitter headquarters.
I agree, I like the fact that Twitter is quick to use.
Have a great day.
Roy
I wouldn’t care about restrictions on viewing them as long as there’s no restrictions on sending out tweets. I don’t stare at my phone long enough to go thru 600. Plus it might be good to make people get off social media and actually socialize in person sometimes. I don’t have a problem with it. Even if I did use Twitter more often, I wouldn’t mind paying for it as long as I’m making more than what I’m paying so I don’t see the big deal.
At first I was a bit concerned, mainly because of the social media noise by many who always complain about Elon Musk. Personally I have no problems with him as CEO of Twitter and I am not a social media influencer, so those read/view limits don'r affect me.
I certainly agree that people spend way more time on social media than they should. Though it is extremely helpful for growing a business and a brand, you can still limit your time by scheduling posts/Tweets. This is what I am doing on a new Twitter account.
As for payment, I could see myself paying for it in the future but not now. Mainly for the reason that I can get free advertising without subscribing. Maybe some day I will pay.
Hi Robert, thanks for the share. I do not use Twitter. It's not for everyone. This makes me feel grateful it is just as well that I do not use Twitter. I never will use that platform.
I agree Brenda. Twitter is not for everyone. It did however grow on me, as Facebook became too much of a Facebook Police state.
I know I do not like Facebook either that's why I dont use social media anymore. But for promoting my business, I know I will need to use a few of them but nothing more. Social media is such a waste of time, especially when it is all about drama and money, buy this and buy that. I am just not into it. These offers are like shiny object syndrome in most cases, these are high-ticket stuff that they use to promote heavily on social media ugh, I dont like it at all.
I am not into all of the drama too but social media is a necessary evil for growing a business. You don't have to do too much on social media.
Fortunately you have a lot of control over what you see. As long as your curiosity doesn't get the better of you, that social media drama will be less noticeable.
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Great observations and discussions around these recent changes in Twitter - @boomergp08 - Thank you for that .
I must admit, I am not a Twitter user. I created an account years ago but never adhered to using it.
Therefore, these changes seem really reasonable to me because being verified most of the time correlates to being committed. This is good for the user experience and organizations using the platform.
You are welcome. I am happy you enjoyed the post. Change is always going to happen on a tech platform. We see it right here at WA, Kyle just blogged about new AI changes and ideas. As far as Twitter is concerned, I hope they get rid of or fix certain issues.