(San Francisco) Elon Musk said Monday that accounts that have been inactive for several years will be removed from Twitter, his latest announcement aimed at energizing the platform.
“We’re eliminating accounts that haven’t been active at all in years, so you’re probably going to see your follower count drop,” the social media boss warned in a tweet.
Since he bought the platform for 44 billion dollars at the end of October, the multi-billionaire has undertaken to disrupt its operation, with massive layoffs, various provocations and chaotic changes.
Many advertisers have deserted the site and the application and the new paid subscription formula Twitter Blue (to be certified and benefit from privileges) seems very far from compensating for the loss of income, according to many analysts.
But the boss of Tesla and SpaceX continues his momentum, encouraged by the feedback from his many fans.
“We work hard to make your feed as interesting as possible […] How does today compare to six months ago? he asked in a poll on Sunday.
About 46% of the 1.5 million voters answered “better”, and 38% “worse”.
Elon Musk has repeatedly mentioned this sibylline objective in recent months: “to maximize the time of use [spent on the platform] without regret”.
When brands choose where to advertise, they consider a variety of metrics, including the number of daily (or at least monthly) active users, average time spent on the platform, and “engagement”. “, i.e. the number of interactions with the content (comments, “likes”, etc.).
“Time spent with no regrets”, “is not like the total number of users or whatever. It’s just the total number of minutes of use with no regrets,” the executive detailed at a conference for advertising professionals in Miami, Florida last month.
Elon Musk did not indicate how to concretely measure this parameter, the name of which suggests that his assessment is subjective.
According to research firm Insider Intelligence, Twitter revenue will drop 28% this year because “advertisers don’t trust Musk.”
In an interview with the BBC, Elon Musk assured the contrary that the company saw advertisers return and was “about to break even”.