But the team has “identified the risk as high,” according to the email, which was sent by an employee on Twitter’s “Product Trust” staff. The e mail cites “risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance,” and says the function will endure a short inside evaluate round these points earlier than shifting ahead.
Whether the function was in improvement earlier than Musk took over is unclear, and Twitter declined to remark Thursday. But the accelerated timeline offers the corporate’s inside evaluate groups simply three days to supply suggestions on the potential dangers.
The timeline might sign Musk’s intent to maneuver way more rapidly in constructing and launching new options than Twitter has up to now — even when which means taking up larger dangers of abuse or legal responsibility. While Twitter makes most of its cash from promoting, Musk has already mentioned he needs to cost customers, together with for the blue test mark of verification.
Musk purchased the corporate for $44 billion final week, taking up billions in debt and promising fellow buyers a hefty return — regardless of some analysts valuing the corporate at roughly half that value. Upon taking management, Musk instantly fired the chief staff, put in himself as “Chief Twit,” introduced in trusted enterprise companions and has been floating a slew of main adjustments, typically by way of his personal Twitter account.
The paid video function would mark a major shift for the platform, which is greatest generally known as a spot for customers to publicly share brief ideas, memes and hyperlinks. Twitter just lately branched into stay audio with a function referred to as Spaces and has begun experimenting with premium options, akin to a “tip jar” for content material creators and a “Super Follow” possibility that lets common tweeters cost a subscription price for bonus content material.
It might additionally push Twitter, which is uncommon amongst main social networks for permitting nudity and consensual pornography, into competitors with websites focusing on grownup content material.
According to the inner e mail describing the brand new video function, which has not but been introduced, “When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet.” They can then select from a preset checklist of costs, akin to $1, $2, $5, or $10.
Mock-ups of the function considered by The Post present a tweet with 4 photographs. Three are instantly viewable, whereas the fourth is obscured, with a lock icon and the message “view for $1.” Paying that quantity would unlock the video, with the creator receiving cash by way of Stripe whereas Twitter takes an unspecified quantity.
Users who haven’t paid wouldn’t be capable to see the video however might like or retweet the tweet.
The e mail doesn’t specify what varieties of movies creators may publish, although it does increase the priority that customers may publish copyrighted content material or use the function to rip-off others. One Twitter worker, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate inside plans, mentioned it appeared like a function that might probably be used a minimum of partly for grownup content material.
Though Twitter is not public, it’s on the hook for round $1 billion in annual curiosity funds on the debt Musk accrued when shopping for the corporate. He has additionally mentioned he plans on charging $8 a month for customers to maintain their blue test mark that indicators the corporate has verified them as who they are saying they’re, whereas giving them added options like precedence in search outcomes.
Some of that cash could possibly be used to pay content material creators like YouTube, Facebook and TikTok do, Musk mentioned Tuesday on Twitter.
He earlier confirmed help for content material creators on Twitter and engaged with some as he sought to make his case that customers ought to turn into paid subscribers in change for a verification badge and different options.
“This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators,” he wrote in a single tweet.
“Creators need to make a living!” he added in response to an enthusiastic tweet from a Tesla influencer, who lauded the fee thought as a technique to spur additional content material creation.
Twitter estimates round 13 p.c of its content material is NSFW, or “not safe for work,” in keeping with Reuters, which included the determine in a narrative final month about how Twitter was dropping its most energetic customers. NSFW content material, together with cryptocurrency content material, have been the fastest-growing areas of English-speaking Twitter, in keeping with an inside presentation considered by The Post and first reported by Reuters.
Most huge advertisers shun NSFW content material and are hesitant to promote on platforms which have a repute for holding pornography. The difficulty has been one which the advertising business has had conversations with Twitter with over time, in keeping with an govt at one of many largest promoting company who spoke on the situation of anonymity. Rivals akin to Facebook and TikTok don’t enable pornographic content material.
In August, The Verge reported that Twitter had developed after which shelved plans for a subscription service explicitly centered on grownup content material, harking back to the profitable grownup platform OnlyFans. But the venture went by way of an intensive evaluate by an inside “Red Team” tasked with evaluating all of the potential dangers, and was finally derailed by concern that Twitter can be unable to make sure that it wasn’t monetizing unlawful little one pornography or sexual abuse.
Musk has been in New York this week, partly to fulfill with advertisers. Last week he posted a word on his Twitter promising advertisers the positioning wouldn’t turn into a “free-for-all hellscape.”
Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.