New Twitter owner Elon Musk has expanded on his ideas to charge users money, as the tech corporation transitions from a publicly-traded company to a privately held one. The social media platform is reportedly building a feature for content creators to put their videos behind a paywall with the company taking a cut of the proceeds, according to an internal email.
According to the email, obtained by the Washington Post, the project seems to be rushing out within the next couple of weeks. However, the team has identified the risk as high, citing "risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance" and said that the feature must undergo an internal review before its official roll-out.
"When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet," the email says of the project, which has yet to be officially announced.
Paying to unlock certain exclusive content would undoubtedly include plenty of "adult" content, as Twitter is one of the only mainstream social media platforms that allows pornographic material. Allowing adult entertainers to charge for their content would be a similar model to sites like OnlyFans, which is known for providing explicit content directly from creators for a fee.
The move signals the new owner's willingness to rely more on the actual creators for revenue, rather than stock value and advertisers.
On Thursday, Popular tweeter Zuby shared his thoughts on the prospect of more profitable content creation on Twitter, which Musk agreed with.
"Twitter should find a way to compensate/monetisation partner with its top creators. Like every other social media app. A small percent create all the high engagement content and keep the site active," he wrote, to which Musk responded with "Absolutely."
On Tuesday, Musk announced his plan to charge users $8 per month to receive blue check marks, which signal "verification" to other users.
Those who pay for this feature will also get "priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam," the "ability to post long video & audio," and "half as many ads."
Even before Musk took over, Twitter had already introduced more content creator-friendly features such as the "tip jar" and the "Super Follow" option, which allows tweeters to charge followers for exclusive posts.
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