Twitter recently released its subscription service in the US, the “Twitter Blue”. Announced in June of 2021, this update promised features to make the user experience more organized.
As soon as I heard about the update release, I subscribed to it. And I have serious concerns about it.
A brief background on Twitter’s History
Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows users to write short texts and share with followers. First released in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, the social media’s main goal was to deliver a message for a small group of people.
Twitter’s version as we know it today, however, came only a year later. And after the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference, the platform had more than 60,000 tweets a day.
At first, tweets had a limit of 140 characters, which was the length of an SMS. In 2017, the app released an update that allowed users to post up to 280 characters. The reasoning behind the update was to allow people to express themselves better.
This update also made Twitter more inclusive since it could be hard for some languages to write whole paragraphs in less than 140 characters. In the same year, the platform also launched the “threads” update. Threads are tweets that are connected to each other. With this new update, texts could be separated into paragraphs, making it easier to read them thoroughly.
IMPACT OF TWITTER IN POLITICS
Although almost 80% of all Twitter content is random conversations, the social media has caused a significant impact in politics all over the planet. In 2010, many Arabic countries faced what is now called the Arab Spring. In response to their governments’ poor administration and lack of democracy, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain organized multiple protests. These protests spread via social media, bringing these countries to the media’s spotlight. In addition, Twitter allowed the citizens to give live updates about the protests, in a way that no one has ever seen before.
Yes, the usage of Twitter was helpful to spread awareness into pro-democracy topics. But just as easy it is to disseminate information, it is to spread misinformation. According to Science.org, tweets with fake news reach users six times faster.
The rapidness and shortness of tweets help false information to spread more quickly. An example of this happened in Brazil. The ex-minister of Education, Abraham Weintraub, posted on his Twitter a graph with the caption “evolution in the number of arbitrary arrests, violations of homes and unconstitutional lawsuits against conservatives.”. The tweet went viral in a few minutes, and people started to realize the graph was actually from Wikipedia and was just an example of a sample chart without any data.
THE NEW TWITTER BLUE
I have been a user of Twitter since 2010, and I consider it my favorite social media. Therefore, when I first knew about the subscription, I knew I had to try it out. And honestly, I was expecting a lot more.
Twitter Blue allows users to customize their app in mobile versions. You can change the color of the icon on your phone. This feature, however, was already possible. When Apple released iOS 3 in 2017, the Shortcuts feature already allowed this customization for any apps. Android users were also able to do the same using third-party apps.
Another new feature is the Bookmark folders, and I have to confess, this is useful. I would always get lost amongst the tweets I had saved because there was no way of putting them into a specific folder. However, this update was past due. People have already found mechanisms to organize their saved tweets. Therefore, paying for a monthly subscription for this feature may not be worth it.
In addition, the mobile app now has a Reader Mode for threads. This new feature transforms the threads into a reading-friendly text, getting rid of the additional distractions. Although I understand how this configuration might be helpful, I don’t see why it should be only available for subscribed members. Instead, this should be an accessibility feature for all users.
And last but not least, the undo button. Twitter users have been asking for the ability to edit tweets for a long time. Yes, it would be very helpful to correct typos. But Twitter has decided that it could also bring bad outcomes, and that’s why they came up with the new undo button feature. Subscribed members now have a 30 second “waiting” period before a post goes live. This is useful for identifying the typos before posting and being able to correct them instead of re-posting. Nice move, Twitter!
SHOULD YOU SUBSCRIBE TO TWITTER BLUE?
If you want my honest opinion, wait for the next update. The Twitter Blue features are limited and not essential for user experience. Although $2.99 a month is not a high price (in general), the available features should be free for all, and not having them won’t affect your usage. But if you’re a curious person like me, subscribing is a good way of keeping up with the updates.
Social Media is essential nowadays. This is not only for those who want to be updated but also for companies who want to engage with their clients and leave their presence in the digital world.
