What you need to know
- Twitter has detailed what "Twitter 2.0" will mean for the social media platform and its users moving forward.
- The company has placed a great deal of importance on experimenting and transparency with its users.
- Twitter 2.0 was first introduced to employees of the company as an ultimatum for either getting on board or taking severance pay and leaving.
Twitter has detailed some information about what "Twitter 2.0" means for the overall social media platform.
According to Twitter's official blog post, Twitter 2.0 is a new commitment to becoming more of an "internet town square," as Elon Musk likes to put it. The company says that Twitter 2.0 aims to provide the tools for people to speak and create what they wish without facing many restrictions while retaining safety for its users (and brand).
In the same stride, Twitter welcomes freedom of speech and will also look to sift out violative content. Twitter states its Trust and Safety team will continue to enforce the platform's rules by keeping user safe from abusive and hateful conduct. Twitter will also take time to refine its policies and processes to find new methods of dealing with disruptive behavior.
The company does note that it requires revenue to stay afloat, something that has been a big motivator for Musk lately as advertisers like Apple pull back from the platform. This is why he pressed hard for the Twitter Blue rework to come in quickly and also offered the coveted blue check mark (which has new variations) as an incentive for purchase.
Twitter also highlights more open experimentation on the website, something that it often does with new features like the new edit button. The company will continue to openly experiment and test features and products as they come as a way of becoming more transparent with its users as it gathers feedback at a quicker pace. To the company, user feedback is an invaluable resource as it looks to become more transparent with what it's looking to bring to the table and for guidance as it fails with certain projects moving forward.
We've already seen this with the new Twitter Blue, which was pulled after users began to take advantage of the feature by impersonating public figures and brand accounts. Last year, Twitter very publicly shuttered Fleets after it failed to garner the engagement it hoped for, and it's unlikely to be the last failed experiment we see from the platform.
As for the new Twitter 2.0 initiative, it was first introduced to people as an ultimatum Musk gave employees following his takeover of the company. In emails sent detailing what this would mean, employees were met with descriptions of an "extremely hardcore" work environment involving long hours on the job. Musk then gave his employees a choice: get on board or leave with severance pay.
