Mary Wilson
Well-known member
Elon Musk’s Twitter is working on paid-video feature with ‘high’ risk
The tool would let video creators charge users for access. The team working on it flagged big potential pitfalls.
November 1, 2022 at 11:47 p.m. EDT
By Will Oremus and Gerrit De Vynck
... Twitter is working on a feature that would let people post videos and charge users to view them, with the company taking a cut of the proceeds, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post. The company appears to be aiming to rush out the feature, referred to as Paywalled Video, with a target of 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 on Twitter’s “Product Trust” team. 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 on those issues before moving forward.
... While Twitter makes most of its money from advertising, Musk has said he wants to charge users, including for the blue check mark of verification.
... The video shift could also push Twitter, which is unusual among major social networks for allowing nudity and consensual pornography, into competition with sites that specialize in adult content.
According to the internal email describing the new video feature, which has not yet been announced, “When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet.” They can then choose from a preset list of prices, such as $1, $2, $5 or $10.
Mock-ups of the feature viewed by The Post show a tweet with four images. Three are immediately viewable, while the fourth is obscured, with a lock icon and the message “view for $1.” Paying that amount would unlock the video, with the creator receiving money via Stripe while Twitter takes an unspecified amount.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/01/elon-musk-twitter-paywalled-video/
The tool would let video creators charge users for access. The team working on it flagged big potential pitfalls.
November 1, 2022 at 11:47 p.m. EDT
By Will Oremus and Gerrit De Vynck
... Twitter is working on a feature that would let people post videos and charge users to view them, with the company taking a cut of the proceeds, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post. The company appears to be aiming to rush out the feature, referred to as Paywalled Video, with a target of 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 on Twitter’s “Product Trust” team. 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 on those issues before moving forward.
... While Twitter makes most of its money from advertising, Musk has said he wants to charge users, including for the blue check mark of verification.
... The video shift could also push Twitter, which is unusual among major social networks for allowing nudity and consensual pornography, into competition with sites that specialize in adult content.
According to the internal email describing the new video feature, which has not yet been announced, “When a creator composes a tweet with a video, the creator can enable the paywall once a video has been added to the tweet.” They can then choose from a preset list of prices, such as $1, $2, $5 or $10.
Mock-ups of the feature viewed by The Post show a tweet with four images. Three are immediately viewable, while the fourth is obscured, with a lock icon and the message “view for $1.” Paying that amount would unlock the video, with the creator receiving money via Stripe while Twitter takes an unspecified amount.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/01/elon-musk-twitter-paywalled-video/
