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Topics: Twitter, Elon Musk, Social Media, News
Rachel Lang
Topics: Twitter, Elon Musk, Social Media, News
Elon Musk has revealed that Twitter users will now be involved in making key policy decisions for the social media platform, but only if they have subscribed to Twitter Blue.
The revelation came in a tweet thread posted by Kim Dotcom, the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct torrent site Megaupload.
In response to a tweet by the file sharing website whiz, one person had the suggestion: "Blue subscribers should be the only ones that can vote in policy related polls. We actually have skin in the game."
Musk agreed, replying: "Good point. Twitter will make that change."
The tweets were in response to a tweet by Musk: "Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes. My apologies. Won’t happen again," Musk wrote after a disastrous week as head of the social media platform.
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Days ago, the Telsa founder shot himself in the foot by starting a new poll that asked followers if he should stay on as Twitter CEO.
The answer was a resounding 'no', with more than 10 million of 17,502,391 voters going against Musk.
"As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it," Musk tweeted soon thereafter.
Be careful, indeed.
Giving power to the people is a concept Musk has toyed with in the past.
Musk's latest move comes in the wake of last week's 'doxxing' scandal, which was a bit of a mess that blew up in Musk's face when a college student and a bunch of journalists were suspended from Twitter for revealing his 'real time location'.
Twitter did not give an indication as to how they did that, which infuriated people around the the college student's account that tracked Musk's jet and the journalists involved had used publicly available information.
As a result, Musk was broadly criticised for walking back on his free speech promises.
This led the Twitter head honcho to apologise for nixing the accounts under a sneaky, new policy that the majority of folks weren't aware of.
But we're aware of it now and have a nice little lesson in capitalism to go with it: Power to those who can pay for it.
Soon after acquiring the social networking company, Musk wasted no time in revealing he would be launching the paid version of Twitter - offering 'exclusive access to premium features'.
That was dumped one day after launch, but Blue is now back and will cost Aussie subscribers $AUD13 (USD$8.66, (£7.13) per month.
But, now it has a new feature, apparently: the chance to have your voice heard by the Twitter powers that be.