Elon Musk has green-lit a new Twitter feature that will let creators charge the platform’s users to view the videos they post — reports The Washington Post.
According to a company email obtained by the publication, the feature is being referred to internally as “Paywalled Video.” The platform appears to be in a hurry to roll out the new feature, targeting a launch timeline of one to two weeks.
What’s more, Twitter will take a cut of all proceeds from this upcoming pay-per-view media feature. Musk, who closed his long-embattled $44 billion USD acquisition of Twitter on Thursday, previously promised backers that he would double Twitter’s revenue within three years — and it’s going to take more than mass layoffs to get there.
As soon as he took over at Twitter, Musk replaced Parag Agrawal as the social media company’s CEO. He also fired the entire board to become Twitter’s sole director.
Twitter’s newly-minted owner is working on creating more revenue streams for the platform, and Paywalled Video could be one of them. Musk is also looking to monetize Twitter’s coveted “verification” feature for notable accounts.
On Tuesday, Musk announced major changes to the Twitter Blue subscription service, which will soon bundle the blue verification checkmark, 50% fewer ads, “priority in replies, mentions, and search,” and more for $8 USD/month.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
And paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Musk has put a rush on Twitter Blue’s planned overhaul as well, with engineers reportedly scrambling to update the subscription by November 7 (or face termination).
The Tesla CEO is bringing his signature mix of innovation, urgency, and constant iteration to Twitter, much to the chagrin of Twitter’s Product Trust team. According to an email about Twitter’s planned Paywalled Video feature, the team has “identified the risk as high.” The team said the feature carried “risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance.”
Twitter’s Product Trust department will put the Paywalled Video feature through a brief internal review to assess the associated risks. However, they only have three days to provide feedback.
Earlier today, Musk elaborated on his plans for a “content moderation council” at Twitter that will “include representatives with widely divergent views” and help steer the platform’s content regulation policies.
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I like the cut of his jib.