Sports’ insider wars may have to be fought on new battlefields.
Shams Charania, Adrian Wojnarowski, Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport and others may soon no longer be able to access the world just by pressing send on Xwitter. Elon Musk is considering charging users for access to the social media platform.
On Monday, Musk and Ver-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in California. They had a public discussion streamed live on Xwitter about anti-Semitism. Musk said the social media platform is working to give users a small monthly payment requirement because, “That’s the only way I can think of to get the huge armies of bots.”
If Musk really wants to tackle anti-Semitism on the social media platform he owns, he can deactivate the accounts of known white supremacists that he should never have reactivated first of all, abstain from it publicly engaging with white supremacistsnor do he lash out when spoken to platform for white supremacy.
With all the goodwill Musk has extracted from Xwitter, many people won’t want to pay for access to it, no matter how insignificant the cost. The price could be 99 cents per month and most users who are unhappy with Musk will still leave the platform. Once that happens, Musk will have killed the breaking news element of Xwitter that makes it relevant — even though it’s almost not worth the $44 billion he paid for it.
Should Woj and Shams broadcast all the latest news on Instagram Live? Should ESPN have a little box with Schefter’s office on our television screens at all times, ready to expand to full screen at a moment’s notice?
Even before Musk bought Twitter and started blasting cannonball-sized holes in its hull, the social media platform wasn’t at the top of the market. What Twitter had before, and still has after the X rebrand, is influence. Certainly, More and more social media influencers are being created on Instagram and TikTok, but what they don’t have is information. Xwitter still has access to direct, credible information that can be disseminated in an instant. That information is listed in chronological order forever, unlike what Mark Zuckerberg also does with Facebook and Instagram.
Other outlets then pick up that information and send it to every corner of the internet on their platforms. One tweet in the middle of the night in February 2023 about Kevin Durant is traded to the Phoenix SunsAnd, Regardless of their interest in basketball or if they had a Twitter account at the time, most people were made aware of the deal one way or another.
That’s why the insiders get paid millions of dollars. Being the first with a story like this means that every time it’s collected by a news source, that original tweet has to be cited. At its best, Xwitter is the best use of the 24-hour news cycle. Instead of watching the same top three stories every hour, people can get the basic facts, laugh at some of the reactions and move on with their lives.
The thought of Woj being defeated by Shams in every NBA story from now on because the younger news breaker can turn on the cameras on his phone and computer more quickly is funny. Yet Musk is changing the path news is spread is just another unfortunate consequence of him being rich enough to ruin everything for everyone.
Enjoy your Schefter Xwitter alerts for the rest of the 2023 NFL season, as they may be gone in the near future.