Internet
Twitter wants to support individual sale of articles
Elon Musk has had multiple arguments with media outlets in his six months as Twitter owner. photo
© Susan Walsh/AP/dpa
Elon Musk’s relationship with the media is clouded. Now the Twitter owner is making the industry an offer. This is not really new – but a success would be quite remarkable.
Twitter owner Elon Musk is approaching the industry with a business offer after conflicts with the media. In May, Twitter plans to introduce a feature where users can buy individual items with one click. Musk wrote on Twitter at the weekend that this could be used to serve those customers who did not want to buy a permanent media subscription. In the past few years there had been several services that offered retail media content – but they failed to establish the business model.
Musk has had multiple arguments with media outlets in his six months as Twitter owner. For example, journalists were temporarily blocked after reporting on a Twitter account that published the flight movements of Musk’s private jet. A major controversy erupted after Twitter, at Musk’s behest, temporarily flagged public broadcasters like US NPR and Britain’s BBC as state-funded. NPR and the Canadian broadcasting group CBC stopped their Twitter activities in protest.