Elon Musk Says You Will Soon Be Able To Turn Off The Tweet View Counter
Earlier this month, CEO Elon Musk introduced a controversial change to Twitter — one that adds a visibility metric to each post on the platform. Currently being rolled out in a phased manner, Twitter users can now see the view count of each tweet. The figure appears to the left of the like and retweet buttons. The change, however, didn't sit well with everyone, despite Musk's claim that Twitter now feels more active with the view counter.
In what seems to be a damage control move, Musk has announced that users will be able to turn off view count. Twitter's new CEO says the platform will soon introduce a setting that will let users turn off the view counter. Competing social media platform Instagram implemented a system that let users hide the number of likes on a post, ensuring that they focus more on the quality of online interactions with people they know and love instead of obsessing over the number of likes on their posts.
Musk, who claims to be on the hunt for a new CEO to run Twitter, also intends to "tidy up the aesthetics." Ever since the view counter was added, the interface looks crowded, especially on mobile. Moreover, the UX uniformity is also gone.
What's the play here?
Earlier this month, when the view counter first began rolling out, Musk justified it by claiming "this is normal for video." He claimed that more than 90% of users read a tweet, but don't actually interact with it using the like, reply, or retweet actions. Depending on the engagement figures, the row of action buttons below a tweet either appears in a single, or a non-symmetrical two row format.
The mercurial Musk further added that a public view count "shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem." Musk's ambitions with showing the view count for tweets, and drawing an equivalence with videos, is yet another sign that Musk wants to pander to creators. This, he said, will make it easier for advertising agencies to find creators whose tweets are seen by a healthy number of users, using the same tactic as YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram Reels.
In the past few months, Musk has publicly talked about Twitter's potential as the driver of a creator economy. He is reportedly willing to pay creators as much as YouTube or TikTok, or even higher in some cases, luring content creators to post their stuff on Twitter (via SlashGear). In the same vein, Musk is reportedly also looking to offer more monetization opportunities to creators.