Twitter Launches Super Follows on iOS [Content Made Simple]
Issue #236: Pokimane, Facebook moderation, and more.
Who Will You Pay to Follow on Twitter? Now You Can!
Quote:
iOS users in the US and Canada can Super Follow accounts that are in the initial test group. Super Followers are identified to creators by a badge that appears under their name when they reply to tweets. Twitter plans to roll out the feature on iOS in more countries in the coming weeks and says it will be available on Android and the web soon.
Super Follows users can charge $2.99, $4.99, or $9.99 a month, with payments processed through Stripe. Twitter says users can earn up to 97 percent of subscription revenue after third-party fees, until they reach a lifetime earnings limit of $50,000 across all Twitter monetization products. After hitting that limit, Twitter says users can earn up to 80 percent of revenue after third-party fees.
Commentary:
This feature has been talked about for a long time and is now finally here. It could revolutionize Twitter’s business. Will be interesting to see how it plays out!
HITTING THE LINKS
Link #1: Pokimane Has Done Enough—and Has So Much Left to Do
A great feature of one of the most influential internet personalities around.
Imane Anys curled up in a high-backed gamer chair, live on camera, when a therapist began comparing her to Buddha.
Anys had everything, at least on paper. Brains, beauty, and—when it came to League of Legends’ virtual arena—brawn. Seven years into her career as the Twitch streamer Pokimane, she had reached rarefied heights of success. She was among the most beloved internet stars of all time, attended by nearly 5 million Twitch followers and an army of ardent superfans who zealously watch her play video games. She had the highest-end gaming PC, a vanity stacked with expensive beauty products, the master bedroom of a Los Angeles mansion she shared with gaming luminaries. An impossible being living an impossible existence, like a visitation from a better future.
Link #2: The Silent Partner Cleaning Up Facebook for $500 Million a Year
A difficult, but good read about the moderation efforts at Facebook.
In 2019, Julie Sweet, the newly appointed chief executive of the global consulting firm Accenture, held a meeting with top managers. She had a question: Should Accenture get out of some of the work it was doing for a leading client, Facebook?
For years, tensions had mounted within Accenture over a certain task that it performed for the social network. In eight-hour shifts, thousands of its full-time employees and contractors were sorting through Facebook’s most noxious posts, including images, videos and messages about suicides, beheadings and sexual acts, trying to prevent them from spreading online.
Link #3: The Most Popular Posts on Facebook Are Plagiarized
Fascinating!
It’s hard to come up with a good idea for a viral social media post. Which is probably why most of Facebook’s most popular pages spent the last quarter stealing their ideas from elsewhere.
Facebook’s report details the top 20 most widely viewed posts on the network over the past three months. One of the posts was deleted before Facebook published it. Of the remaining 19, though, only four appear to have been original. The remaining 15 had been published in at least one other place first, and were then re-uploaded to Facebook, sometimes with small changes.
THE FUNNY PART
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I wonder if the swordfish tweet was plagiarized. Feels like that's all memes are these days: someone posts something funny, it doesn't go anywhere. Someone else posts it, and boom. Viral.