Twitter Archives - MARKETECH APAC

Manila, Philippines – Elon Musk’s X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, has rolled its ‘not a bot’ subscription service in the Philippines and New Zealand. For the company, the move is aimed at bolstering their efforts to reduce spam and and platform manipulations through bots.

According to a recent blog post by X, new accounts which will be registered in these two markets starting October 17 would be required to verify their phone number. Then, users would be now required to select their subscription plan.

Aside from X Premium or Verified Organizations plans, the ‘not a bot’ offering costs US$1 annual fee for new users in New Zealand ($1.43 NZD) and Philippines (₱42.51 PHP).

“This will evaluate a potentially powerful measure to help us combat bots and spammers on X, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount. Within this test, existing users are not affected,” the company said.

Since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter happened in October 2022, he implemented paid verification services in the platform which has been always under scrutiny for being used by fake actors, with a study by SimilarWeb saying they prefer quitting the platform altogether than pay for a subscription service on Twitter.

New York, USA – Integral Ad Science (IAS) has announced an exclusive partnership with X, formerly known as Twitter, for brand safety and suitability optimisation controls for advertisers to launch ads in the X platform.

IAS’s pre-bid brand safety and Suitability product provides marketers with greater control and optimization of quality media investments. IAS will now provide valuable third-party affirmation that brands running ads on X are appearing in brand safe and suitable environments as defined by the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) framework.

Moreover, IAS’s data-backed brand safety and suitability products help ensure high quality media placements, further demonstrating IAS’s commitment to bringing even greater trust and transparency to all aspects of the digital measurement landscape.

Lisa Utzschneider, CEO at IAS, said, “By activating IAS’s pre-bid optimization solutions, marketers can ensure their campaigns prioritize only quality inventory that is brand safe and suitable. We’re proud to be the first and only pre-bid brand safety and suitability partner with X and look forward to furthering the company’s commitment to transparency by giving marketers greater control through solutions that safeguard a brand’s interests and drive brand equity.”

Meanwhile, Linda Yaccarino, CEO at X, commented, “At X, balancing free expression and platform safety is our number one priority – and we are proving these two things are not at odds. Growing our partnership with IAS offers brands a new level of protection and transparency as they continue to grow on X.”

It is also worth noting that that global food company Mondelez has also returned to do advertising on the platform. X noted that it has extended its industry-leading partnerships and capabilities of’Adjacency Controls’ to help all advertisers achieve their unique suitability needs in a more scaled and automated way. These new capabilities will work together to unlock an extended level of adjacency protection for X advertisers.

Jon Halvorson, SVP for consumer experience at Mondelez International, said, “X has made tremendous progress in building brand safety tools that empower advertisers to leverage the power of their platform while curating the context in which the ads appear. Adding pre-bid meets a critical commitment made by their leadership and we are eager to implement this new feature going forward.”

Available in the coming weeks within the X Ads Manager, X also introduced ‘Sensitivity Settings’, an automated solution that will help brands establish the right balance between reach and suitability when it comes to ad placement on the platform.

The ‘Sensitivity Settings’ solution will use machine learning to reduce adjacency to varying levels of content according to a brand’s sensitivity threshold in an upcoming campaign. Brands can then select their preferred environment that best meets their individual campaign objectives.

Paris, France – International news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has announced that it has sued X, the platform formerly known as Twitter and owned by Elon Musk, to provide all the necessary elements required for assessing the remuneration owed to AFP under the neighbouring rights legislation.

In a recent statement, AFP said that X had refused to enter into discussions regarding the implementation of neighbouring rights for the press.

For the news agency, these rights were established to enable news agencies and publishers to be remunerated by digital platforms which retain most of the monetary value generated by the distribution of news content.

AFP filed its legal action in the judicial court of Paris.

“As a leading advocate for the adoption of neighbouring rights for the press, AFP remains unwavering in its commitment to the cause, even four years after the law’s adoption. The legal proceedings initiated against Twitter today are in line with this ongoing commitment,” the company said.

The added, “The agency will continue to employ the appropriate legal means with each relevant platform to ensure the fair distribution of the value generated by the sharing of news content.”

In response, Elon Musk tweeted saying, “This is bizarre. They want us to pay *them* for traffic to their site where they make advertising revenue and we don’t!?”

Musk rebranded Twitter to X on July 23, months after Twitter merged with X Corp., the technology company helmed by Musk. The new updates comes over a month after Twitter named former NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino as its new chief executive officer. Musk completed its acquisition of Twitter back in October 2022.

New York, USA – With legacy blue verification marks disappearing on Twitter, the platform has instead launched a paid verification service called ‘Twitter Blue’, charged at US$8. But even with such a feature, more Twitter users are more likely to quit the platform than pay for the service, according to web analytics company SimilarWeb.

According to their latest insights, during the month of March, more than 1.1 million Twitter users deactivated their accounts, compared with about 116,000 who confirmed a signup for Twitter Blue.

For this month of April, Twitter Blue signups peaked at about 6,600 on April 2, compared with about 38,700 account deactivations that same day.

Sentiments related to quitting Twitter were already high during the months of October and November last year, the time when the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk has been processed.

Lastly, account deactivations have spiked around the time Elon Musk took control of Twitter, at about 88,900 on November 20, but have since subsided, averaging less than 35,700 per day in March. However, in the first three months of 2023, Twitter web and app engagement fell on a year-over-year basis.

Manila, Philippines – Around 53% of Twitter users in the country have said that the social media platform is a driving force to promote freedom of speech in the country, according to the latest study from Milieu Insight.

The data also noted that 43% said that Twitter serves as a safe space for others to express their own opinions. Furthermore, 26% said it allows users to gain knowledge, with 21% saying that the platform serves as a space for healthy debates or conversations.

When asked about what they think of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, 49% thought it was neither good nor bad. Meanwhile, 31% saw it as somewhat good with an 11% identifying it as actual good news. On the other hand, 5% said it was somewhat bad news, with 3% saying, without reservations, it was definitely bad news.

In terms of reduced censorship measures in the platform, 43% states that it will benefit others in a positive way, whilst 22% had no opinion of said changes, and 20% expressing being uncomfortable with said changes.

Following that, when asked about how Twitter’s censorship policy will affect free speech, 51% of the respondents note some form of positive impact on the platform, whilst 24% saying otherwise , and 11% affirming that there is no impact at all.

Lastly, in terms of the impact of the Twitter censorship on hate speech, 45% believed it had some form of positive impact, with the other 29% saying the complete opposite – a negative impact. Meanwhile, 12% think there was no impact at all.

Singapore – The massive layoffs by social media giant Twitter has finally reached the Asia-Pacific region, affecting a large chunk of employees across various teams, including communications, marketing, engineering, and sales.

A report from The Straits Times notes that while the number of laid-off employees are unknown, it is understood that employees who were laid off receive said notice on their private emails, while those who have kept their jobs received an email on their corporate one.

Internal email from Twitter states that the lay-offs were part of “an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path.”

Cipluk Carlita, who served as the head of communications for Twitter in Southeast Asia, was one of the people who bore the shocking corporate decision by the social media platform.

“While this is not how I would’ve wanted my journey to end, Twitter will always have a special place in my heart. It’s not just a place to work, but also to learn something new every single day and create lifelong friendships. Twitter is not a place. It’s the people,” she said on her LinkedIn.

The massive Twitter layoffs follow days after billionaire Elon Musk completed the social media giant’s acquisition. It should be noted that key C-Suite executives from Twitter’s global team have been fired, including CEO Parag Agarwal.

Musk’s takeover of Twitter has also caused a massive wave of advertising exodus, with large brands such as Mondelez, General Motors, and Pfizer announcing they have halted advertising on Twitter. In addition, advertising giant Interpublic Group (IPG) has also advised its clients to halt Twitter advertising for the meantime.

Despite Musk trying to appease advertisers to stay and initial reports saying that Twitter has approached several fired employees to come back, Musk’s Twitter takeover has had a rocky start, with rocky issues including the introduction of paid verification status, as well as lessened restrictions on controversial and far-right content.

Singapore – Months after the initial desire from billionaire Elon Musk to acquire social media giant Twitter in April, the acquisition deal has been finally completed. However, as part of the early moments of the acquisition, Musk has been reportedly firing key executives of the Twitter board.

Reports from the BBC note that while there was no official investor relations announcement posted, an early investor for the company confirmed the deal has been done. In response to the acquisition, Musk posted several tweets to commemorate the deal, including a tweet saying ‘the bird is free’, and a video of him entering the Twitter headquarters–while jokingly bringing a kitchen sink and saying ‘let that sink in’.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585341984679469056

Musk also tweeted out a statement directed at advertisers, saying that his motivation in acquiring Twitter was to have a ‘common digital town square’, where a wide variety of beliefs can be shared with one another without resorting to violence.

“There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide in our society”, he said.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585619322239561728

Despite the intentions, Musk’s Twitter takeover is marred with issues. Reuters reports that inside sources say that Musk has fired chief executive Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. Agrawal and Segal, who were present at the closing deal, were later escorted out.

It should be recalled that Agrawal previously said that Musk won’t be joining the Twitter board following his desire to acquire the company.

The Musk-Twitter acquisition deal has been a long one in the making, with Musk previously backing out of the deal in July. In response, Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk, with the latter finally accepting to acquire Twitter.

Singapore – Social media platform Twitter has announced a new feature called ‘Twitter Circle’, which allows users to send tweets to select people, and share their thoughts with a smaller crowd.

Twitter users can now choose who is in their Twitter Circle, and only the individuals they have added can reply to and interact with the Tweets one shares in the circle.

The feature was first tested to select users in May, and is currently rolled out to everyone on iOS, Android, and Twitter.com globally.

“With Twitter Circle, people now have the flexibility to choose who can see and engage with their content on a Tweet-by-Tweet basis. This makes it easier to have more intimate conversations and build closer connections with select followers,” Twitter said in a press statement.

Tweets sent to one’s circle will appear with a green badge underneath them. They can only be seen by those they have selected to be in your circle and cannot be Retweeted or shared. Additionally, all replies to circle Tweets are private, even if your Twitter account is public.

“We want to ensure everyone on Twitter has the choice, control, tools, and transparency to join the conversation how and when they want, and Twitter Circle is another important step in that direction,” the company added.