By Michael Haag | Sports Editor
Is this ever going to end?
The ongoing conversation about Elon Musk and X, formerly known as Twitter, has turned into a string of columns, and it’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s like a movie series that has too many screenplays. There’s just too much to unpack as time goes by, and it’s almost worth asking, should we even be surprised?
X is not a great application. That goes without saying. But what’s really wrong with it, and how could it be better? Twitter was never perfect, yet it still felt like one of the best social media platforms out there.
That’s no longer the case with X.
It boils down to a couple of things: X inherited an app that’s supposed to be a hub for news, sports, entertainment, you name it. It’s supposed to be a versatile platform — one you can scroll through for hard news regarding the latest events or for humor through clever content creators.
Now it’s like walking through a minefield and hoping you don’t take the wrong step. Let me explain.
Posts are full of replies — some wildly inappropriate — that don’t even correlate to the original tweet. You also still have to be careful with what you’re engaging with, since there are tons of people who pay for the verified check and impersonate famous or credible accounts.
It’s just sad, especially since most of this stems from bot accounts that Musk was supposedly driven to erase. Bots have always been an issue and will continue to be a nuisance, but Musk supposedly had a plan in place to rid the app of them.
Hopefully, he can figure it out without turning X into a subscription-based platform.
But X’s downward trend has been consistent since Musk took over. As mentioned before, the app wasn’t in a great place when he bought it, but it’s hard to find an argument that suggests it’s much better now.
From mass firings to the removal of news headlines from articles to charging for verification, X is simply a mess. And the aforementioned bot-filled comment sections make the app feel like a desperate attempt at trying to retain users the way Instagram Reels or TikTok do.
Just stick to what worked. Change is good and healthy, but why try to be too different? It’s only caused X to become worse and worse as time has gone on.
X will never be perfect. Twitter never was. But for someone who is so confident in his abilities as a leader, Musk has really underwhelmed in this role. Only time will tell if this newly-branded app can find its way back to the top, or if it’s doomed like the current trend suggests.