OK, I’m convinced. Elon Musk is trying to drive everyone off X.
Even since he has taken over the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Musk has alienated users. There was the whole verified blue check mark debate, harassing news outlets that he doesn’t like, the rise in hate speech and allowing those who have previously been banned back on the site.
But now he’s contemplating something that will surely alienate users: He wants their money to use something that has always been free.
In a livestreamed conversation this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Musk said X is “moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system” to combat “vast armies of bots.”
Musk gave no indication of how much a “small monthly payment” is.
“We want it to be a small amount of money,” Musk said. “This is a longer discussion, but in my view, this is actually the only defense against the vast armies of bots.”
Saying this is a “longer discussion” would seem to indicate that the monthly charge is not imminent. Then again, we all know how impulsive Musk can be, and once he puts something out in the universe, he usually acts on it quickly.
Verified users of X already pay $8 a month. That gives them the blue check mark, as well as other perks, such as the ability to edit posts, write longer posts, and send direct messages to some other users.
Now, one could easily make the argument that it’s Musk’s company, so he absolutely should be able to charge people to use it. Why would it be any different than, say, newspapers charging readers or cable companies charging viewers?
Deadline’s Ted Johnson wrote, “Musk has long complained about X/Twitter’s battle against bots, but he’s also reportedly considered putting the social media platform behind a paywall since shortly after he purchased it last year. His statements also come as the company grapples with a loss of ad revenue. Musk wrote in July that the company had seen a nearly 50% drop in ad revenue plus a heavy debt load.”
More on the Musk-Netanyahu talk
Netanyahu urged Musk to do more to combat antisemitism on X. He told Musk, “I hope you can find within the confines of the First Amendment the ability to stop not only antisemitism, or roll it back as best you can, but any collective hatred of the people that antisemitism represents. … I encourage you to find the balance. It’s a tough one.”
Musk said, “Obviously, I’m against antisemitism. I’m against anti-really anything that promotes hate and conflict.”
Recently, Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League. He claims its accusing him of antisemitism has led to advertisers pulling their money from X.
Disturbing news in Las Vegas
Last month, a retired police chief in Nevada was killed in a hit-and-run incident while riding his bike. Las Vegas Review-Journal crime reporter Sabrina Schnur was at the scene and wrote about the story that appeared with the headline: “Retired police chief killed in bike crash remembered for laugh, love of coffee.”
What wasn’t known at that time was that the victim, Andreas Probst, was intentionally run down, according to police. Nearly two weeks later, a source gave Schnur a video showing the driver in the crash intentionally hitting Probst and laughing about it with the passenger. Schnur connected the source with the police, and the Review-Journal covered the subsequent murder charge.
Yet, Schnur and the Review-Journal came under attack for supposedly not properly covering the story. She was a target of antisemitic attacks and death wishes.
So what happened? Why did Schnur become a target?
My colleague, Angela Fu, explains in her story for Poynter: “… when that video went viral over the weekend, social media users shared screenshots of the old obituary, taking issue with the phrase ‘bike crash.’ They filled Schnur’s inbox and social media mentions with increasingly personal attacks and accused her of being anti-white. They shared her photo and made antisemitic comments. They circulated her office phone number and told her that they hoped she would get cancer, that they hoped she would die. They found her private social media accounts and dug through her Twitter, unearthing posts she’d made as a teenager, going as far back as 2015.”
In an interview with Fu, Schnur said, “That’s what started to scare me — if they’re taking the time to go through my Twitter, what else are they taking the time to find on me? I started to piece together, OK, if I was going to just cyber stalk someone, what things would they be able to find on me? I started to feel genuinely unsafe at that point.”
Even X owner Elon Musk chimed in by tweeting, “An innocent man was murdered in cold blood while riding his bicycle. The killers joked about it on social media. Yet, where is the media outrage? Now you begin to understand the lie.”
The thing is, Schnur and the Review-Journal did everything right. It was a social media wildfire of misinformation that started the trouble.
In a column, Review-Journal executive editor Glenn Cook said he had never seen vitriol of this volume or intensity, adding, “It’s like a fire hose of hatred to the face.”
Schnur had every reason to be frightened. Just last year, Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German was stabbed to death outside his home. Police later arrested former Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, who had been the subject of German’s reporting.
Take time to read Fu’s story to hear more from Schnur and Cook and the threats the journalists too often face.
Despite saying he is against anything that “promotes hate and conflict,” Musk also said, “… free speech at times means that somebody you don’t like is saying something you don’t like. If you don’t have that, then it’s not free speech. That doesn’t mean some sort of negativity should be pushed upon people, because for the X platform, unless it is interesting, entertaining, engaging, then we will lose users. People will not want to use our system if they find it to be unpleasant.”
The latest from Brian Stelter
Brian Stelter, shown here in June 2022. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
A little more than a year ago, media reporter Brian Stelter was let go at CNN. And his show, the long-running “Reliable Sources,” was canceled. (I still miss that show and Stelter’s work on it.) Stelter, however, remains plenty busy. More on that in a moment.
Last week, Stelter spoke to a group of 30 journalists at Drake University as part of a free, on-the-ground Poynter workshop in Iowa ahead of the 2024 presidential election. He talked about the current news cycle and all the places that cover the news.
“If you are a news junkie, you’re in heaven,” Stelter said. “There are more news sites, greater variety of information than ever before.”
And, of course, he still closely follows (and covers) the media and its coverage of the news. He told the group, “The challenge for the press is to figure out how to be louder than the liars. I don’t think this is taking a side.”
My Poynter colleague Josie Hollingsworth was in Iowa and wrote, “He’s hosting the weekly “Inside the Hive” podcast by Vanity Fair, he’s a consulting producer on “The Morning Show,” and he’s preparing for his book launch in November. Oh, and he’s also the Class Dad at his 6-year-old’s elementary school.”
He also continues to write a ton, including a piece for Poynter earlier this year.
Be sure to check out Hollingsworth’s story for more on Stelter.
English 101
Grammar, sentence structure and punctuation. They matter. Even in tweets. A couple of “Monday Night Football” injuries have proven that.
First, in the first week of the NFL season, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon. Patrick Mahomes, star quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, tweeted out, “Hate that man… Praying for the best.”
Now if you read that, it sounds like Mahomes is saying he hates Rodgers. Mahomes quickly realized the value of a comma and added one between the words “that” and “man.”
So his new tweet read, “Hate that, man… Praying for the best.”
OK, that makes sense. In fact, the X account of Merriam-Webster tweeted, “Proud of this edit.”
Then came this past Monday night when Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb suffered a severe knee injury. The injury was so gruesome that ABC was applauded for not showing the replay of how it happened. Check out this video. It doesn’t show the injury, but turn up the volume to hear the crowd in Pittsburgh audibly and simultaneously gasp when the injury is shown on the big scoreboard in the stadium.
While it was assumed Chubb’s injury was serious, the severity wasn’t immediately known. But ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter sent out this tweet:
“Nick Chubb dislocated his left knee and tore his MCL, PCL, and LCL with cartilage damage on October 10, 2015 vs. Tennessee. He injured the same knee tonight vs. Pittsburgh.”
It only takes a couple of seconds to read the whole tweet and understand its full meaning, but Schefter was roundly criticized for his sentence structure. As you started to read that tweet, it appeared as if Schefter was reporting on the injury from Monday night. Perhaps he should’ve started with “On Oct. 10, 2015, Nick Chubb dislocated …” That way, it would have been more clear.
Awful Announcing’s Chris Novak compiled some of the reaction Schefter received for his awkwardly phrased tweet.
One more thing …
Cleveland Browns running back Nick Chubb is helped to a cart after an injury on Monday night in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
As I mentioned, ABC was widely praised for not showing replays of Chubb’s injury.
But I have always wondered if networks should re-air such footage of severe injuries. We constantly talk about the dangers of football, but couldn’t you argue that we’re sanitizing the game and its risks by not showing its consequences?
Networks need not be gratuitous. They can show it once, along with a warning: “Be advised, we are about to show you a replay that some might find to be disturbing.”
Now, a counterpoint could be that if someone really wants to see the injury, they can find it on the internet. But that forces viewers to seek it out. And a cynic might suggest that the networks, who are in business with the NFL, don’t want to show the brutality of the game because that is, well, bad for business. That same cynic might ask whether the NFL has a say in censoring the replays of scary injuries.
Look, I don’t have all the answers on this one. The injured player and his loved ones watching at home also should be respected.
But I don’t think we should just automatically revert to not showing replays all in the name of protecting the viewer. I’m not sure protecting the audience really is in the best interest of the audience. Maybe we all should see just how violent this game can be. Maybe we need to see it.
I don’t think we should be quick to praise networks when they don’t show replays — even when the replays are tough to watch. In fact, that’s kind of the point. The tougher it is to watch might be all the more reason for us to see it.
Media tidbits
- Los Angeles Times culture columnist and critic Mary McNamara with “Thanks to Drew Barrymore, striking writers are in their most powerful position yet.”
- CNBC’s Alex Sherman with “After a year of chaos, CNN bets on new CEO Thompson to focus on long-term viability.”
- Variety’s Brian Steinberg with “MSNBC Isn’t Using Blue-State Chatter to Build a Daytime Nation.”
- Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Newsmax over its alleged lies about the 2020 election is scheduled to go to trial in late September 2024. You will recall that Dominion also sued Fox News and Fox News paid Dominion $787 million in a settlement. CNN’s Marshall Cohen has more.
- NewsNation has re-signed Dan Abrams to a new multi-year deal where he will continue as host of the prime-time program “Dan Abrams Live.”
- Jeff Saturday has returned to ESPN. The former Indianapolis Colts center joined ESPN as an NFL analyst in 2013 and worked there until last season when, out of nowhere, he was hired midseason as the coach of the Colts even though he had no coaching experience at the professional level. He took over a bad team, yet his stint was embarrassingly bad as the Colts won just one of the eight games he coached. He was not retained as head coach in the offseason. On Tuesday, he returned to ESPN, first appearing on the show “Get Up.” Here’s the show having fun with his return.
- The New York Times’ Dan Barry tweeted out a photo of an empty New York Times sports department, one day after the Times closed down the section for good.
Hot type
- The Washington Post’s Travis M. Andrews with “The radical earnestness of Tony P. How an affable 25-year-old mesmerized D.C. with the blissful mundanity of his daily life.”
- Powerful photojournalism from New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Tyler Hicks: “IN ONE IMAGE: Load. Fire. Get to Cover.”
- For Teen Vogue, Yacob Reyes with “Susana Matta Valdivieso on the Parkland Shooting, Abuse, and Anti-Immigrant Laws in Florida.”
More resources for journalists
- Celebrate journalism and democracy with Anderson Cooper at Poynter’s annual Bowtie Ball in Tampa, Florida, on Saturday, Nov. 18. Get tickets.
- Subscribe to PolitiFact’s weekly newsletter. Get facts delivered straight to your inbox.
- Poynter’s Beat Academy (Webinar series) — Enroll now.
- Lead With Influence (Nov. 6-27) (Online seminar) — Apply by Oct. 13.
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What a lazy and ridiculously facile take on Musk and floating the idea of paying for Twitter or whatever that fraud calls it.
He’s not “trying to drive everyone off the platform.” It’s astounding to me how journalists – many who have carried his water for years – are so oblivious to reality: Musk needs money. His own compulsion to reveal what a racist, fascist-friendly, conspiracy theorist, anti-Semite hate-monger he is, has driven away the site’s main source of revenue: advertising. He’s on the hook for over a billion dollars a year in interest payments alone. If he doesn’t come up with cash, his lenders will call in the loans and he loses his own stake and the Tesla stock he used to secure them. Down goes the share price of Tesla, which is where most of his “wealth” is tied up.
This isn’t about bots. It isn’t about some genius-level scheme to sink Twitter. It’s simply that Musk has had no filter to keep up the fairy tale that he’s a brilliant visionary. He’s an idiot, and a misanthrope, who’s ridden a wave of bullshit, that has been sustained by the engineers and truly smart and talented people he paid. You’re just only now seeing that Musk’s yacht is little more than a dinghy.