The Takeover of Twitter, and Other Social Media: What will you do next? The impact of Elon Musk on Twitter and the future of House of the Dragon

Vittoria covered the news of the takeover deal closing. Users are flocking to other platforms because of Elon’s ownership of Twitter. Read more about the potential privacy risks that could arise from Elon cleaning house. Read Twitter users’ reactions to the power shift. The stories are about Elon Musk.

We talk with WIRED platforms about the changes coming to the service and how they may affect the future of it.

You should encourage your male friends to watch House of the Dragon since they’re interested in fathering children. Natalia Lafourcade has a new album called De Todas las Flores. Lauren recommends reevaluating your relationship with Twitter, and social media in general.

Social Media Platforms for Writers: A Perspective on Sheehan, Calore, Brown, and Silicon Valley Luminosity

Vittoria Elliott can be found on Twitter @telliotter. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is a fighter. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. There is a show that is produced by Boone Ashworth. Solar Keys is the song that is used in our theme.

You can always listen to the show on the audio player on this page but if you want to get every episode for free, you’ve come to the right place.

If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. You can find us in the app if you use the same phone as us. We are on it as well. If you need it, here’s the RSS feed.

A wave of resignations follow the rapid-fire layoffs of many employees following the takeover by Musk of the social media platform. Some former employees took to Twitter to post emotional goodbyes.

Many users followed suit, tweeting short eulogies for the platform. For some, like writer Dan Sheehan, gaining a platform on Twitter later allowed them to excel in their personal and professional lives.

I got some of my first job offers in the copywriting space after establishing this following for myself. That’s how I paid the bills for a very long time,” he says.

Through copywriting, Sheehan was able to dedicate time to writing his novel, a project that was made a reality in part by crowdfunding through his large Twitter following.

“We were able to reach over 100,000 people directly, but not through traditional means due to the fact that I was able to keep the lights on, pay the bills, and write the book,” he says.

Creative fields have been cornered by wealthy people for the longest time. You were unstoppable to the people holding the keys to that because you built this audience on a social media platform.

“For brown reporters, there are not many ways to get our names out there.” She started her career writing music reviews and eventually got a job as a TV station’s music reviewer. From there, her audience grew, and she continued getting job offers, which led her to her job today. Future reporters won’t have the same opportunities as today’s.

“It’s just unfortunate that the diversity problem continues, and I don’t know how now, those communities are going to find each other… Twitter was such a way to see it right there and start following people and start reading other people’s work,” she says.

The End of Twitter: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: What Has We Learned in the Last 15 Years of Twitter?

Wendi Muse was an active member of ‘Disability’ for a long period of time. She spent the pandemic posting resources to help people get masks, as well as sending some from the personal stockpile she had amassed. Earlier this year, she noticed a greater demand for reliable N95 masks in the immunocompromised community.

Since January of this year, Muse has been sending out more than 12,000 masks from his living room. She thinks she would not have reached that many people if it weren’t for her presence on the social media site.

It has been crucial because it has allowed us to learn more about the H1N1 epidemic, as well as reach out to other people who are less fortunate, and hopefully they will have access to these resources.

Even though alternative sites have seen a recent influx in new users, the possibility of the end of Twitter would be a big loss for Muse.

It’s more difficult for people that aren’t necessarily in a social circle, because of their uneasiness of not knowing.

Though Twitter has yet to fully collapse, people have already jumped to other social media platforms, leaving the Twitter town square a little less full than it once was.

At Twitter, things were even more unstable. Musk spent months in court fighting to get out of the deal after launching the surprise bid for the company.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, changed his company’s name to show his intention to invest in the metaverse, an virtual world he thinks is the future of the internet.

Online Ads, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, BeReal, and Trump: The Last Days of Digital Democracy and the Rise and Fall of Social Media

The mood changed in a few months. Amid global economic turmoil, higher interest rates, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the online advertising market cratered.

Facebook announced its first-ever declines in users and sales. The company has lost about two-thirds of its market value this year. The companies that rely on ad revenue also felt the squeeze.

After Musk gave in and took control in late October, he slashed the workforce by more than half, upended the site’s long-time rules, amplified conspiracy theories, welcomed back banned accounts including former President Donald Trump, and released internal documents in what appeared to be an attempt to discredit the previous management.

Back in social media’s early days, companies like Facebook thought of people as one identity and wanted to share parts of themselves with other people, Harbath said. It is actually turning out, that is not the case.

The big social media apps are becoming more like TV networks where a small number of creators make most of their content, because of the race to emulate TikTok.

Michael Sayman, an app developer who has worked at Facebook, says that there is a “shiny object” in the social media space.

That’s left many people looking for alternative ways to keep up with friends. Many are turning to messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Discord, others to more private apps like BeReal, where users post one unedited photo a day, that can’t be liked or shared.

Disillusionment with the legacy social sites has also inspired a new crop of apps by and for conservatives, who feel their views are muzzled by Silicon Valley.