Elon Musk claimed an all-time high Twitter signups despite troubles with an avalanche of advertisers and users migrating to other social media platforms over worries about verification and hate speech.
On Saturday night, Musk tweeted that signups had averaged over 2 million per day over the previous week, a 66 per cent increase over the same week in 2021.
He also noted a record high in active minutes spent by users, which he estimated to be around eight billion per day as of November 15 (a 30 percent increase over the corresponding week in 2016).
Since November 13 of this year, a year-over-year decline in hate speech impersonations may be seen compared to October.
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After the launch of Twitter Blue earlier this month, Musk said that reports of impersonation on the service skyrocketed.
Musk, who also owns rocket company SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink, and tunneling company the Boring Company, claimed that acquiring Twitter will expedite his plans to develop a “everything app” named X.
The Everything App would contain features including encrypted direct messages (DMs), longform tweets and payments, according to the tweet.
Musk predictedalso ca early Sunday morning that Twitter would reach 1 billion monthly users within the next 12 to 18 months in another tweet.
Big brands who advertise on Twitter, like General Motors, Mondelez International, and Volkswagen AG, have temporarily halted their campaigns as they try to figure out how to work with the new management.
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Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media watchdog, released a report claiming that 50 advertisers who have temporarily halted their advertisements had accounted for about US$2 billion (A$2.96 billion) in Twitter’s revenue since 2020.
Musk has blamed a collection of human rights organisations for pressuring the main advertisers on Twitter to take action if he does not safeguard content moderation, resulting in a “massive drop in revenue” for Twitter.
In response to Musk’s demand that employees sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or leave, it is thought that hundreds of Twitter employees have resigned from the struggling company.
Half of the company’s employees were let go in early November, including those in product and engineering, communications, content curation, human rights, and machine learning ethics.
With AAP.
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.