The new ‘buts’ to Twitter that Meta and other competitors take advantage of

Elon Musk once again exasperated his users, nine months after buying Twitter, limiting, without prior notice, the free use of the social network, a decision against the current of the industry from which its competitors seek to profit.

(See: Matrix of Facebook prepares the launch of an app that will compete with Twitter).

So, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta groupthe parent company of Facebook, this week introduced its new app ‘Threads’, that intends to compete directly with Twitter.

Described by Apple as “lto Instagram app for text conversations”the release is scheduled for Thursday in the United States.

On the other hand, the project Bluesky, led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and accessible by invitation, it is also trying to get noticed with a more decentralized approach. These initiatives are intended totake advantage of the deterioration of Twitter’s image since its purchase by Musk andl last year, for 44,000 million dollars.

The blue bird network once again generated strong reactions last week to restrict reading tweets 10,000 per day for audited accounts, therefore payment, 1,000 for the others and even 500 for new accounts.

Maximum limits that have already been raised twice in a few days. The stated goal is to limit the massive use of the social network’s data by third parties, especially the companies that power its artificial intelligence models.

(See: Why is Twitter now restricting the reading of posts?).

“This disturbed normal use” of internet users, according to Musk, who also ended the day before the ability to view tweets without logging in and identifying yourself.

Many users complained that some features are unusable. The social network also announced on Tuesday that within a month it will reserve its application ‘TweetDeck’, widely used by information professionals, to audited accounts, that is, paid.

“The platform’s history was built on its ability to guarantee a stable and reliable service with no usage limits,” says John Wihbey, a professor at Northeastern University in the United States. What is happening is “a 180 degree turn”, underlines.

(See: Would Mark Zukerberg and Elon Musk go to the battle ring in Las Vegas?).

By dint of layoffs and cost reductions, “It has long been expected that the platform’s infrastructure will deteriorate to the point of being unusable, or that malfunctions will send users fleeing.”Wihbey says.

When Musk took control of Twitter in October, “people were willing to leave for ethical reasons”, memory. “Today, Musk gives them technical reasons”Add.

“It’s one more reason advertisers will spend their dedicated social media budgets on other sites.“, it states Mike Proulx of the Forrester firm.

(See: Facebook, preferred network by Colombians to talk about politics).

The marks “they depend on your audience and user interactions. Twitter is destroying both. How will you explain to advertisers that users might not see their ads due to usage throttling?”, asks Justin Taylor, a former member of the social network and current vice president of the WWE Professional Wrestling League, on his account.

This new announcement is detrimental as it gives the impression that Musk is always alone in command. The new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, took over nearly a month ago in large part to try to reassure advertisers.

The Restrictions applied by Twitter complicate the work of researchers that analyze the behavior of users of the social network, regarding the spread of misinformation.

Despite the fact that Twitter continues to be a ‘more open’ network than its competitors, “it becomes extremely difficult to do it legally with publishable data“, explains to AFP Florent Lefebvre, a French specialist in data analysis of social networks.

(See: Twitter’s ad revenue is rock bottom in the US.)

According to him, the limitations “annoy the general public”, but the companies specialized in data mining found solutions by multiplying the number of accounts they use.

AFP