X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has become the first online platform to be issued with a $610,500 fine under Australia’s Online Safety Act for its failure to meet basic online safety expectations.
X has 28 days to either pay the fine, issued by the e-safety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, or provide responses to questions X ignored from the commissioner on its work to crack down on child sexual abuse material on the platform.
The legal notices were issued to X, Google, TikTok, Twitch and Discord in February following the first round of notices sent to Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Snap and Omegle last year.
It can run at a loss. I believe the real motive here was to deplatform some users, or at least limit the functionality and usefulness of the platform. Twitter’s reach was vast, and activists were using its reach to speak out against oppressive Governments (amongst other things). The previous two US elections also demonstrated the power and influence of Social media. Elon can run X at a loss, funded by Saudi (and others) as long as it stays larger than competitors.
As much as we’d like them to be, Mastodon et al are not nearly big enough to compete at the moment, and it will take some time to match the critical mass of X. Thus, as much as users might complain, those that require a loudspeaker platform (journalists, celebrities, politicians, academics) are compelled to still use X lest they themselves become irrelevant.
Twitter could run at a loss because of its investors. They were a major public communication platform with a huge user count, so investors were keen to pump money into it because it had the perception of a stable company, and they were probably able to secure loans based on those investments and their assets.
Elon has systematically gutted the company, and destroyed its brand recognition(see how every article that mention it has added a clarification when they mention X)
Their stock took a dive and has now just regained some of its pre musk value, but with the constant news about subscription models and more changes, who knows how long that will last.
Kinda funny since I’ve never had a Twitter or x account but I do have a pemmy account. Obv anecdotal but still
I think it is safe to assume that the percentage of Lemmy users that actively use/d Twitter is quite low. Even Reddit was dominated by anti-Twitter/Meta sentiment, which has been further concentrated here.
The only mainstream platform I would say a large percentage of Lemmings use would be LinkedIn, and even then it’s recognised as a necessary evil rather than an additive service.
