Digital Insights - 17 February 2023

Claims build in support of Elon Musk inflating reach of his personal tweets

• A report by Dr Timothy Graham, a senior lecturer in digital media at the Queensland University of Technology has gathered data strengthening claims that the tweets of Twitter’s owner Elon Musk have been artificially inflated.

• After his Super Bowl tweet performed worse than President Biden’s, the Twitter executive ordered major changes to the algorithm, with reports that 80 Twitter engineers had been engaged to tweak the platform’s algorithm.

• Biden's tweet generated nearly 29 million impressions prompting Musk, who also tweeted his support for the Philadelphia Eagles, to delete his tweet of a little more than 9.1 million impressions in apparent frustration.

• Shortly after Graham shared his findings, he said his Twitter account was briefly locked and then the tweets in question were removed without explanation. The tweets were reinstated a couple of hours after they were first posted.

• The senior lecturer shared that he managed to monitor Musk's tweet activity by using Twitter's API, which he presently has free access to. However, Twitter has declared that it will terminate the provision of this service for free, even to researchers, and will now require a minimum monthly payment of $100 for access.

Google’s Bard chatbot makes mistake in ad, causing share price to fall

• Google publicly revealed its much-awaited AI chatbot Bard, announcing its intention to wrap it into its search engine, but the lacklustre reveal combined with an error in the ad sent parent company Alphabet’s share price down 10%.

• Google’s announcement came on the back of Microsoft’s already introducing ChatGPT into its Bing search engine (which we discuss further below), with many predicting that this will enable Bing to become a serious contender in the search market. The reaction of many was that Google’s own reveal was in some ways ‘too little, too late’ in comparison, given a lack of concrete timelines.

• The situation was exacerbated by Google’s accompanying ad for Bard featuring an incorrect answer offered by the chatbot, prompting concerns that the technology is not as robust as expected.

• More broadly, investors have shown anxiety over Google potentially soon having to start seriously fighting for its domination of Internet search, which is both a market it dominates and one that generates a majority of its revenues. The slightly awkward reveal of Bard brought those concerns to the forefront.

Twitter reveals top Super Bowl ads

• Twitter shared insights on which Super Bowl ads received the most love on the platform as well as a look into the best accompanying Twitter activations.

• Bud Light, Tubi and Pepsi got the most people talking. Truly engaging ads, with Tubi’s in particular, which made audiences second-guess what was happening on the screen.

• Meanwhile, other brands brought interesting integrated solutions, which Twitter describes as ‘gamifying the game itself’. Doritos introduced a gamified ‘triangle scheme’ competition offering players a chance to win a cash prize, while Busch Beers ran a mad-libs contest on the social network.

• Twitter currently remains the top platform for engaging with the Super Bowl, and of course its memorable ads, but with extensive changes occurring in the social media space, it may not be long before the likes of TikTok take the crown.  

EU rebukes Twitter for incomplete disinformation report

• Twitter failed to provide a full report to the European Union on its efforts to combat online disinformation in accordance with the EU's voluntary 2022 Code of Practice on Disinformation.

• EU leaders are concerned about false information spreading on online platforms, particularly about the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian propaganda.

• According to the EU, Twitter provided little specific information and no targeted data in its baseline report, which was at least half the length of those filed by other companies.

• There are concerns about Twitter after Musk ended enforcement of its policy against COVID-19 misinformation and dissolved its Trust and Safety Council. Twitter's press office was also shut down and its communication team laid off after Musk bought the social media platform.

• Other tech companies, including Google, TikTok, and Meta, received praise for their actions to combat disinformation.

Microsoft launches the new Bing, with AI built in

• In November 2022 OpenAI released ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that has taken the web by storm, for its detailed responses and articulate answers.

• Microsoft, who have invested $11 billion in OpenAI since 2019 has announced the integration of OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 into Bing for a ChatGPT-like experience within the search engine. They also launched a new version of its Edge browser with AI features built into the sidebar.

• OpenAI claims that GPT-4 can provide more relevant answers, annotate these, and provide up-to-date results while providing a safer user experience compared to GPT-3, which ChatGPT uses.

• The new Bing features an option to start a chat in its toolbar and can handle queries related to more recent events compared to ChatGPT which is limited to September 2021.

• Bing will also prompt users with its own questions and suggest potential answers to those questions. 

Twitter Blue introduces 4,000-character tweets 

• The Tweet character limit is up from the previous limit of 280 characters, but only for Twitter Blue

• Twitter Blue is the platform’s paid tier, which offers additional features to users for a monthly fee. It is part of the company's efforts to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising. Under Musk, blue tick verification marks were controversially rolled into Twitter Blue.

• The company also plans on rolling out “half ads” to Twitter Blue subscribers in the coming weeks. "Half ads" refer to Twitter's plan to show fewer ads to its paying subscribers compared to non-paying users. Specifically, Twitter has stated that it will show one ad for every two paid tweets on Twitter Blue. This is meant to provide an ad-free or ad-light experience to Twitter Blue users as one of the perks of the paid subscription.

Rumours emerge that Meta is considering paid checkmarks

• According to software “reverse engineer” Alessandro Paluzzi there’s a new mention in the codebase of both Facebook and Instagram of a ‘paid blue badge’. The developer shared a screenshot of the app’s code with TechCrunch.

• With Twitter bringing in an estimated $7 million per quarter from Twitter Blue subscriptions, Meta may well be exploring this avenue given the apparent value in paid verification.

• Meta has neither confirmed nor denied the project and has in the past said that it won’t charge a subscription fee to access its apps.

China is getting tough on ‘deepfakes’

• Last month, China introduced first-of-its-kind regulation around ‘deepfakes’. The new rules governing deep synthesis technologies include getting user consent to produce digitally altered images and prohibiting the ‘dissemination of fake news’, reports say.

• According to analysts, in a field with limited precedent, Beijing could influence how other governments deal with the machine learning and artificial intelligence that power deepfake technology, although some critics fear the measures will be used to further curtail free speech.

Susan Wojcicki stepping down as YouTube CEO

• After nine years as head of the video platform, Susan Wojcicki is stepping down as YouTube’s CEO, but stated in a tweet that she will continue to work with her successor Neal Mohan during the transition - Mohan was formerly YouTube’s Chief Product Officer.

• Wojcicki’s departure follows other high-profile female leaders who have left big technology companies. Earlier this week, Meta Chief Business Officer Marne Levine announced she would be leaving after 13 years at the company. Last year Sheryl Sandberg announced she was stepping down as chief operating officer after a 14-year stint at Meta.

• In a post on YouTube’s blog Wojcicki stated she will take on an advisory role across Google and Alphabet at the invitation of Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO.

• Wojcicki has been with Google for almost 25 years and was among the company's first 20 employees. The Washington post claims Wojcicki’s departure represents a major changing of the guard for YouTube and Google more widely.

• Wojcicki oversaw tremendous growth, taking YouTube from around a billion users about a decade ago to 5 billion users worldwide currently.

• During her tenure, YouTube has faced criticism over content moderation, misinformation, and child privacy.