How noble of Elon Musk—to only charge $8 to Twitter users who live below $1.90 a day
The modern day hero
Last week, Elon Musk, Twitter’s CEO and bastion of equality, announced that from April 15th, only verified accounts would appear on the ‘For You’ recommendations.
‘Verified,’ according to Elon, translates to accounts paying Twitter $8 monthly. It equals 1,419 Kenya shillings, 5000 Naira, and 200 South African Rand.
But don’t scratch your heads awfully hard doing the conversion. Twitter has graciously provided a conversion table.
After all, Twitter is all about transparency & trust now—a minor issue like locking an entire continent out of a GLOBAL platform’s most valuable feature is nothing compared to that all-important transparency!
Peradventure, you doubt the importance of the ‘For You’ recommendation to the continent, here is a story to demonstrate its value.
In 2021, Jacqueline Watahi, a budding entrepreneur in Kenya, posted an image of her Chapatis (a pancake-like bread that is very popular in Kenya) on Twitter to showcase what she was doing.
At the time, she planned to source seed funding to purchase a sun-shielding umbrella and a source of fuel, then cook and hawk her chapatis on the street.
However, Twitter proved to be a game changer. Her post went viral, and so impressed were Twitter users by the yummy-looking Chapatis that they sent orders online. Thus, her business was born. Fast forward to 2022, she now has a thriving business as ‘Chapati Mistress’ capable of feeding and educating her two children.
Before that, she was a struggling, recently-separated mom of two with zero sources of income, incapable of taking care of herself and her kids.
That is the power of the ‘For You’ recommendation page. The post was recommended to someone, who shared it with their audience, and their audience further shared it, and within a few hours, it went viral and reached all the right people—a hungry customer base.
That is the story of so many small entrepreneurs in the continent, but with Musk’s $8 monthly verification fee, such scenarios will become non-existent.
Why?
Over 478 million Africans live below the poverty line—less than $1.90 daily. They cannot afford $8 month/$84 per year. Most Africans will therefore opt not to be verified.
As an unverified Twitter user, your posts will not appear on the ‘For You’ recommendation page . They will be limited to only the people who follow you.
If you are a new entrepreneur in the continent with limited capital and zero followers, you are out of luck—no one will see your posts. The chance of your post going viral will be -n.
The fee will lock out a lot of SMEs in the continent who depend on that ‘For You’ recommendation to reach and find customers.
It’s even more laughable when you realize that $84 is enough seed capital for some entrepreneurial ventures in the continent. Jackline is proof of this. Before her tweet went viral, she was looking for seed capital of approximately $90 (enough for a shade umbrella and source of fuel).
How interesting that the man who claims to be fighting for equality for all (Elon actually said that Twitter blue is all about treating everyone equally) seems to think the world begins and ends with the West.
I guess to him, ALL= US + Europe (-everyone else).
Of the 290,000 currently verified accounts, 180,000 are in the US. Rebecca Enonchong, a top tech entrepreneur and one of Africa’s top 50 influential women, perfectly captures the effect of this in her tweet.
Cheers indeed to elitist noble Elon Musk 🥂
P.S: Such things are the reason Africans can never stop fighting for an Africa that is self-sufficient enough to not be an afterthought. You do not matter to anybody else, especially those who scream about eqality the loudest!
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