Twitter has been news, not news, ever since Elon Musk first forcibly entered his shareholding. and then initiate a purchase attempt. We now know that – barring any possible twist, of course, nothing is ruled out – that agreement has been violated, and it’s entirely possible that Musk and the company behind the social network will end up in court.

But before and after Musk, Twitter was a platform with much more weight and influence than economic significance.

Big tech companies and social media are now concentrating more power than ever. Their disputes with states from all over the world trying to thwart their monopolies have become the order of the day. For example, legislative battles to force them to pay taxes in every territory. These are global powerful companies with their own agenda, which, due to their condition, begin to confront the governments of some states face to face.

But in order to understand their magnitude, it is better to compare them with what they are measured by. Here we put Twitter in front of a mirror to understand its true weight in terms of influence, economy, and how it is run.


“Population” of users between Brazil and Indonesia

Twitter was born on March 21, 2006 from the ashes of another podcast startup, Odeo. Evan Williams, the founder with the most boards, came from the founder of Blogger.famous blogging platform, and by selling it to Google, left the search company with a significant amount of money under his arm.

With Williams, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey they completed a quartet that would share the leadership of the social network and that would be the first point of contention. Glass left shortly thereafter, Stone too, although he later returned, and Dorsey and Evans, being their CEOs, also left.

Despite the obvious weight at the level of information and opinions, Twitter has always had problems effectively counting the number of users, as well as making a profit.

According to its latest results, it has around 240 million monetizable daily users.which in this state comparison would place it between Brazil (215) and Pakistan (245 million people). Of course, as we speak, and as his tug-of-war with Musk has shown, the presence of bots does not seem obvious.. From the 5% that the platform provides to the quadruple that the tycoon’s lawyers have defended.

This brings us to your second problem. Twitter was the great social network that cost the most to be profitable. He achieved this in 2018, repeated in 2019, and in 2020, due to a drop in advertising due to the pandemic, he returned to red numbers. Everything while its users seemed to follow the plane.

In the first half of 2022 – albeit with losses in the last quarter – it also achieves this. The company’s net income was $243.3 million, while revenue increased by 6.8% to $2,377.6 million.

In continuous development and without clear guidance

What’s happened to Musk in recent months has brought Twitter to the forefront, but that’s nothing new. Twitter has always lacked clear leadership. Dorsey, its longest-serving CEO, became the only founding leader remaining in office along with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, but that’s over.

As we have seen, the history of Twitter is one of constant tension between its founders and shareholders. Especially relevant is the case of Noah Glass, who spent a year writing “I started this” on his Twitter profile.

An insider report in 2011 tracked him down to this story. Following her post, Williams tweeted, “It’s true that @Noah never got the attention he deserved for his early role on Twitter. Also, he came up with a name that was brilliant.” Dorsey did not publicly comment on the story, but later stated that he was not involved in Glass’s firing.

Subsequently, Twitter founders Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey had a tense relationship to say the least.. Although they started out as friends, and Williams even chose Jack as the man to run Twitter, their relationship quickly soured. Today, Williams still owns shares in Twitter, but none of them are part of the company.

Williams founded and runs Medium, while Dorsey focused on Square, later integrated into Block. The Twitter story no doubt provides a good thread.

Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Dorsey, co-founders of Twitter
Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Dorsey, co-founders of Twitter

His lack of leadership is also reflected in his current board of directors, with Parag Agrawal as CEO but no apparent full decision-making ability, and a group of shareholders who appear to be hell-bent on selling despite Musk’s bid dropped.

Right now, Vanguard Group, an investment fund manager, became Twitter’s largest shareholder after increasing its presence to 10.3%. as a direct reaction to the appearance of Musk, but he does not seem interested in going further, or he has the financial means to do so.

This is why, perhaps, over the past year and a half, we have seen Twitter transmute so much.. In fact, we’ve seen her even submit her stories (“Fleets”) and delete them. Added to this is the purchase of Revue to integrate the newsletter system, Spaces, its copy/plagiarism Clubhose, Twitter Blue, its $2.99/month paid service that allows us to un-tweet, SuperFollows, the integrated Patreon space, and finally Communities or Notes, something similar to subreddits, where you can find places only for general topics or blog articles, respectively.

The Problem with All Social Media: It’s an Echo Chamber

If it were a state, Twitter would also have small territorial divisions. Partner created with the support Donald Trump or Mastodonopen source and with protocols that allow more freedom of expression on paper were born as a response to a common problem for networks, where to put a limit, which Musk also wanted to solve in his own way.

On Twitter, to a lesser or greater extent than on other networks, we surround ourselves and follow people with whom we share opinions, turning each post into a snowball of reposts and retweets between people with the same prejudices.

This is what is known to users as an echo chamber. This concept is an allegory that illustrates how on Twitter and online we surround ourselves and follow the people with whom we share opinions, turning each post into a snowball of reposts and retweets between people with the same views.

In 2017, a team of researchers from Yale and New York Universities analyzed tens of thousands of political tweets. and checked how those who could be considered left and right were hardly touched.

In other words, there were no retweets or replies from the other end of the spectrum. In fact, the study is betting that if Twitter gives us the impression that there is always a typical person who comes looking for a fight, it is because their opinion stands out in some way compared to the soft comfort that our network of followers provides. and followers. us, in the most related cases.

Source: Hiper Textual

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