Twitter’s promising revival

The demise of Twitter has often been foretold. Lots of digital start-ups have crashed, so why not this independent and often irritating platform? Twitter is not part of the all-conquering FANG — Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google. Even as a social media entity, it lags in 15th place globally, just above Reddit. Its worldwide total of 436 million users is puny compared to Facebook’s 2.9 billion, YouTube’s 2.6 billion and WhatsApp’s 2 billion — as recorded by Statistica.

By the frenetic standards of Silicon Valley, Twitter is considered slow to innovate. The most significant developments since its launch in 2006 have been to increase the number of characters per tweet from 140 to 280 and to allow pictures and short videos to be attached to them. Both were predicted to finish off Twitter and its unique identity, but neither did.

Management under the sign of the plump blue bird tweeting has been in constant turmoil, with its most colourful founder, Jack Dorsey, being hired and fired again at least three times over the years.

In January 2021, Donald Trump predicted Twitter was finished after it imposed a lifetime ban on its most celebrated tweeter following the attack on the US Capitol, for tweets that “could inspire others to replicate violent acts”.

Twitter has survived all this. Now with its usage during the Ukraine conflict, it seems to have come into maturity as a vital and responsible information source, just as commercial pressures are tempting it to go rogue or amoral like some of its bigger US-based rivals.

Dorsey, the San Francisco based coder, credited with being one of the four founders of what became Twitter, was forced out as Chief Executive last November for what is expected to be the last and final time. Few tears were shed. He has a personal worth of some eight billion dollars to console himself, is still CEO of Block Inc., a financial payments company that he founded, and has a close interest in cryptocurrencies.

Dorsey was pushed out by activist investors, led by Elliott Management with a billion-dollar stake, who were impatient at the rate of Twitter’s growth and return. This week the world’s richest man Elon Musk muscled in with $2.9bn to become Twitter’s single biggest investor, with more than 9 per cent of the stock and a seat on the board.

The co-founder of PayPal and current boss of Tesla and Space X was already a major tweeter with only eight million or so fewer followers than Trump. His outspoken comments have landed him in court on several occasions.

Musk tweeted that he looked forward “to making significant improvements” to Twitter. Top of these is said to be an “edit button”, which will allow users to revise their tweets; a useful innovation for ham-fisted Tweeters like me whose posts are littered with mistypes and misspellings.

Presumably, as a highly successful serial tech investor, Musk will also push the platform in a more commercial direction, perhaps building on Twitter Blue, a premium subscription service costing several dollars a month. It will be a test to achieve this without denting the platform’s openness, which has helped turn it into the useful resource it has become.

President Zelensky’s command of social media has been the communications backbone of Ukraine’s unexpectedly fierce resistance to Russia’s invasion. His main channel of communication to his people is the encrypted network Telegram, and he has used whatever digital messaging services he can to speak directly to parliaments and assemblies around the world, always tailoring his appeal to the local audience. But his various efforts are all sliced and diced and put up on Twitter. Other Ukrainian sources have reported directly on their experiences, with Illia Ponarmarenko and Kyiv Independent providing models.

World leaders are tweeting their reactions to ongoing events. Major news organisations from the BBC and Sky to AP and Reuters are also using the platform as a showcase for their work as well as for important commentators such as Sir Lawrence Freedman and Anne Applebaum.

Twitter is becoming less a social network for people to express themselves and vent their spleen and more of an exchange of information and comment. It has embraced this role with a seriousness lacking on other platforms.

In a series of tweets prompted by the conflict, Sinead MacSweeney, Twitter’s Vice President of Global Public Policy, notes that “people… have used Twitter to share critical information in real time, locate support, connect with one another and raise their voices”.

The platform has tightened its rules to flag up propaganda and fake news. For example, the RT presenter and former MP George Galloway is threatening to sue after Twitter added the notice “Russia State-Affiliated Media” to his Tweets. It is hard to see why he is bothering given that he routinely blocks any follower judged insufficiently sympathetic.

MacSweeney states that Twitter’s “top priority is keeping people safe” and its chief financial officer says “Twitter is about what is happening in the world right now”. In making these aims compatible 50,000 tweets have been taken down and a hundred thousand accounts removed. Days before the invasion in February, Twitter dropped advertising on Ukrainian feeds.

After his removal cost him 88 million followers, Donald Trump declared that “Twitter now is very boring, a lot of people are leaving Twitter.” In fact, the number of Twitter users has increased, especially outside the US. Meanwhile, Trump had to shut down “Truth Social”, the rival social network he tried to set up, having failed even to use it himself. The “very elegant” press releases from “the 45th President” in Mar-a-Lago, which he boasted about, have also dried up.

Daily Active usage is what really matters to a social media platform. As with its competitors, a majority of Twitter’s content is put up by a minority of those signed up to use it. In terms of active users on social media, Twitter does better than its overall reach. Its 217m daily users place it fifth with 23 per cent penetration of the total market, compared to around 60 per cent for YouTube and Facebook.

Twitter’s new CEO, Parag Agrawal, who unusually took over with immediate effect the day Dorsey’s departure was announced, has set the ambitious target of raising active daily usage by one hundred million people by the end of next year.

Around 80 per cent of Twitter usage is in the US. With the exception of Christiano Ronaldo, the top ten most followed are all North American, mainly popstars. Topping the chart with 129 million followers is Barack Obama — more than Trump ever had.

The fastest growth is now outside the US. In numerical terms, the UK is not even in the top twenty countries for users. But in terms of market penetration, at 18 per cent, it is 6th behind more populous nations including the US, Japan, Brazil and Indonesia.

A majority of MPs are on Twitter, and it has been taken up by party leaders including David Cameron, who famously expressed his reluctance by remarking “too many Tweets make a twat”. Currently, Boris Johnson has 3.77 million followers, Nicola Sturgeon 1.48 million and Keir Starmer 1.16 million. The rest of them, including Sir Ed Davey (74,400), have fewer followers than me (221,000) which is a bit worrying. But then Piers Morgan has nearly eight million.

None of which will stop my wife from complaining that I’m always on Twitter (not true!) or me ignoring her. It hasn’t always been so but for now, Twitter is, on balance, a vital source of information and a useful force for good. We can only hope it stays that way.