Comment Elon Musk’s Twitter is moving forward with plans to charge for content on the social networking site, now with video. Twitter is working on a feature that allows users to post videos to the site and then charge users to view them, with the social media company taking a cut of the revenue, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post. The company appears to be aiming to rush the new feature, referred to as Paywalled Video, with a target of just one to two weeks before launch. But the team has “identified the risk as high,” according to the email, which was sent by an employee to the “Product Trust” Twitter group. The email cites “risks related to copyrighted content, creator/user trust issues, and legal compliance” and says the feature will undergo a brief internal review around those issues before moving forward. It’s unclear whether the feature was in development before Musk took over, and Twitter declined to comment Thursday. However, the accelerated timeline gives the company’s internal audit teams just three days to provide feedback on potential risks. The timing could signal Musk’s intention to move much faster to build and release new features than Twitter has in the past — even if that means taking on greater risks of abuse or liability. While Twitter makes most of its money from advertising, Musk has already said he wants to charge users, including for the blue verification check mark. Musk bought the company for $44 billion last week, taking on billions in debt and promising fellow investors a big return — despite some analysts valuing the company at about half that price. Once in control, Musk immediately fired the executive team, installed himself as “Chief Twit,” brought in trusted business partners, and has made a number of major changes, often via his own Twitter account. Elon Musk is courting Twitter advertisers as he looks for new revenue streams The paid video feature will mark a major shift for the platform, which is best known as a place where users publicly share short thoughts, memes and links. Recently, Twitter branched out into live audio with a feature called Spaces and began experimenting with premium features, such as a “tip jar” for content creators and a “Super Follow” option that allows popular tweeters to charge a subscription fee for bonus content. It could also push Twitter, which is unusual among major social networks in allowing nudity and consensual pornography, into competition with sites specializing in adult content. According to the internal email describing the new video feature, which has yet to be announced, “When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can activate the paywall once a video is added to the tweet.” They can then choose from a predefined list of prices, such as $1, $2, $5, or $10. Mockups of the feature seen by The Post show a tweet with four images. Three are immediately visible, while the fourth is dark, with a lock icon and the message “view for $1”. Paying that amount will unlock the video, with the creator getting paid through Stripe while Twitter gets an unspecified amount. Users who haven’t paid won’t be able to view the video, but could like or retweet the tweet. The email doesn’t specify the types of videos creators can post, though it raises concerns that users might post copyrighted content or use the feature to defraud others. A Twitter employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said it looked like a feature that would likely be used at least in part for adult content. Analysis: The problem behind all of Twitter’s other problems Although Twitter is no longer public, it is poised to pay about $1 billion in annual interest payments on the debt Musk racked up when he bought the company. It also said it plans to charge $8 a month for users to keep their blue checkmark that means the company has verified them as who they say they are, while giving them additional features like priority in search results. Some of that money could be used to pay content creators like YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, Musk said Tuesday on Twitter. He earlier showed support for content creators on Twitter and interacted with some as he tried to argue that users should become paid subscribers in exchange for a verification badge and other features. “This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators,” he wrote in a tweet. “Creators have to make a living!” he added in response to an enthusiastic tweet from a Tesla influencer who praised the payment idea as a way to further content creation. Twitter will charge $8 per month for verification. What you need to know. Twitter estimates that about 13 percent of its content is NSFW, or “not safe for work,” according to Reuters, which included the number in a story last month about how Twitter was losing its most active users of. NSFW content, along with cryptocurrency content, were the fastest-growing areas of English-language Twitter, according to an internal presentation seen by The Post and first reported by Reuters. Most major advertisers avoid NSFW content and are reluctant to advertise on platforms that have a reputation for containing pornography. The issue was one the marketing industry has had discussions with Twitter over the years, according to an executive at one of the biggest advertising companies who spoke on condition of anonymity. Rivals like Facebook and TikTok do not allow pornographic content. In August, The Verge reported that Twitter had developed and then abandoned plans for a subscription service focused explicitly on adult content, reminiscent of the lucrative adult platform OnlyFans. But the project went through an intensive review by an internal “Red Team” tasked with assessing all potential risks and was ultimately derailed by concerns that Twitter would be unable to ensure that it did not generate revenue from illegal child pornography or sexual abuse. Musk was in New York this week, in part to meet with advertisers. Last week he posted a note on his Twitter promising advertisers that the site would not become a “free-for-all.” Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.
