On-by-default video calls come to X, disable to retain your sanity
- Reference: 1698344435
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/10/26/x_video_calling_defauly/
- Source link:
X owner Elon Musk first teased the addition of video and audio calls to his rebranded Twitter in [1]August as part of his drive to turn X into the everything app he's long wanted. The feature was rolled out to iOS users [2]on Wednesday .
Of course, this being Musk's X, with its [3]dearth of advertising revenue and [4]shrinking user base, the feature was enabled by default, potentially in another bid to give the chance to say has been widely adopted.
[5]
By default, video and audio calling is limited to anyone you follow or who is in your address book, if you granted X permission to comb through it, and calling other users also requires that they've sent at least one direct message to you before. Of course, only premium users can place calls, but everyone can receive them.
[6]
[7]
iOS users that don't want to be potentially inundated with spam video calls can disable the feature by navigating to the Direct Message screen by clicking the envelope icon in the lower right corner of the X app, then clicking on the gear in the upper right corner to open Messages settings.
From there the option to turn video calling off should appear, but note this might not be the case: Your reporter, who disabled the feature when he received the notification it had been added this morning, can't see an option to turn it back on, and he really wanted to take some screenshots for you. For what you should see, look to [8]this X post from SocialProof Security CEO Rachel Tobac.
[9]
Musk said X calls would be available on mobile apps and desktops, but the support page for the feature only said it'll be available soon for Android.
Looking ahead to year two of Musk's X
[10]Tomorrow will mark a year since Elon Musk took over at Twitter, and boy, what a year it's been.
Rather than walk you through all the [11]chaos [12]that's [13]happened [14]over [15]there in the past 12 months, which El Reg readers are undoubtedly well aware of, let's see if the road ahead looks any less tumultuous for Musk's social media empire in its second year.
Spoiler: Probably not.
The company has, in all likelihood, not recovered from the [16]mass exodus of advertisers early in Musk's tenure over concerns about a [17]rise in hate speech on the platform. X CEO Linda Yaccarino, ostensibly brought onboard to [18]repair the damage to brand safety X suffered under Musk, [19]claims advertisers are returning, but the data doesn't seem to back that up.
[20]
Marketing consultancy Ebiquity, which works with 70 of the 100 top-spending advertisers, [21]said recently that only two of its clients spent money on X in September 2023, down from 31 in the same month in 2022. Musk himself [22]claimed recently that advertising revenue at X was down 60 percent.
[23]More X subscription tiers could spell doom for free access as biz bleeds cash
[24]X marks the bot: Musk thinks spammers won't pay $1 a year
[25]Twitter, aka X, tops charts for misinformation, EU official says
[26]The Anti Defamation League is Musk's latest excuse for Twitter's tanking ad revenue
As for claims advertisers are back, Yaccarino's statement lacks some important context. Visa, one returning advertiser Yaccarino cited, spent just $10 (£8.26 and no, we didn't forget any zeros) in the 12 weeks prior to her making the comment last month. In the 12 weeks prior to Musk buying X, Visa had spent around $77,500, [27]per Media Matters.
AT&T, another brand Yaccarino said had returned, only spent $781 (no, we didn't forget any zeros this time either) in that same 12-week period, compared to $1.77 million spent in the 12 weeks before Musk's buyout. Similar statistics hold true for Nissan, WalMart and HBO, which have all spent less than a single percent of the cash they paid to Twitter in the weeks leading up to Musk's purchase.
That's unlikely to be putting X's financiers, who helped pick up the tab for Musk's $44 billion purchase of Twitter last year, at ease. Yaccarino [28]met with bankers from Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays and other institutions earlier this month to assure them the company wasn't leaving them holding a bunch of junk debt. Whether they'll be able to profit from the reported $13 billion lent to Musk for the purchase is increasingly unclear, however.
According to unnamed sources from banks that [29]spoke to the Wall Street Journal, the banks have been unable to offload their Twitter debt, which in normal circumstances they would have turned around and sold to investment firms soon after lending it. No one wants to buy, which has [30]been the case since shortly after the purchase, leaving the banks stuck.
Collectively, the institutions that lent Musk his Twitter money expect to take a 15 percent loss, just shy of $2 billion - if and when they're able to sell, the WSJ's sources said. Of course, that's if Musk's antics don't keep driving X's value down further; Twitter 1.0's debt bonds were rated junk before Musk saddled it with billions in additional debt and sent its main source of income - advertisers - fleeing for greener pastures.
Year Two of X is shaping up to be interesting - maybe it'll be the last? ®
Get our [31]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/31/x_biometric_employment_data/
[2] https://help.twitter.com/en/using-x/direct-messages/audio-video-calls
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/05/twitter_adl_lawsuit/
[4] https://www.wsj.com/tech/xs-tumultuous-first-year-under-elon-musk-in-charts-71656f81?mod=followamazon
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZTrhi96uf@cF-jWa@kUGvAAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZTrhi96uf@cF-jWa@kUGvAAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZTrhi96uf@cF-jWa@kUGvAAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://twitter.com/RachelTobac/status/1717228586330214673
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZTrhi96uf@cF-jWa@kUGvAAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/27/musk_sink_twitter/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/11/twitter_musk_week/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/twitter_rate_limits_itself_into/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/10/official_twitter_musk_payment/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/07/weekend_twitter_chaos/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/05/x_twitter_links_details/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/advertisers_twitter_concerns/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/01/twitter_violent_speech_policy/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/05/yaccarino_takes_twitter_helm_early/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/28/x_election_integrity/
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZTrhi96uf@cF-jWa@kUGvAAAAIs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[21] https://www.businessinsider.com/ebiquity-data-most-advertisers-stopped-spending-x-twitter-2023-10
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/05/twitter_adl_lawsuit/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/20/x_subs/
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/18/twitter_not_a_bot_fee/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/26/twitter_eu_disinformation/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/05/twitter_adl_lawsuit/
[27] https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/linda-yaccarino-again-claims-advertisers-are-returning-x-here-are-facts
[28] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/05/x_twitter_links_details/
[29] https://www.wsj.com/tech/one-year-on-twitter-continues-to-burn-a-hole-through-bank-balance-sheets-d92dfe12
[30] https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/banks-forced-hold-twitter-deal-debt-sources-2022-10-21/
[31] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Xitter?
'X' is pronounced like 'Sh'. Because that's where it is.
Re: Xitter?
Shitter?
It's where people use it and post their brain farts.
Year Two of X is shaping up to be interesting - maybe it'll be the last?
Well maybe something might be better in 2024...
We should all thank Musk.
No, really.
Given that social media in general - and Twitter in particular - is a plague on society, good manners, reasonable debate and civility… his selfless efforts to turn it into an x social-network (see what I did there?) must be applauded.
Can we persuade him, and his investor backers who clearly hate having so much money, to buy Facebook next and burn that to the ground, too?
Re: We should all thank Musk.
Don't forget:
* Tik Tok
* Snapchat
Re: We should all thank Musk.
I had tried to, but thank you for undoing months of expensive therapy!
Re: We should all thank Musk.
Instagram is owned by the Zuck. if you just get Meta, you get both Arsebook and Instastupid.
Tik Tok is owned by the PRC. Start posting lots of pix of Winnie the Pooh. Maybe a few of Paddington the Bear. See if you can irritate Xi into killing it for you.
Snapchat, unfortunately, might require more direct action.
Visa, one returning advertiser Yaccarino cited, spent just $10
What does that get you now, a million ads? Generally, chief executives of well known companies don't boast in public that a customer has spent $10 with them.......... there's usually been some bigger sales than that.
Android - app doesn't have permissions to open my camera or microphone.
Brain - First "call" I get, the app gets uninstalled.
Also Brain - Why the f**k would I ever want to call someone on Twitter... like... who would you ever add on Twitter that you'd want to call? And even if you did, who would you call that you couldn't do in a million other better ways?
I know you're trying to bury Twitter, Musk, and I can't really understand why except out of some kind of spite, but it's about time everyone still working there just walked out.
Not Holding Junk Debt
That must have been one "alternative facts" heavy presentation. It'd probably be enough to make even a hardened advertising hack blush with embarrassment. It's like saying Xitter is on the road to being profitable. I mean sure, if you ignore things like debt servicing payments, rent on facilities, money owed to former employees, and all the lawsuits being leveled against the company, I could maybe believe they'd be on track to eek out a tiny profit. Probably less than a single percent, but a profit just the same. Factor in any one of those things, and I imagine Xitter is nowhere near profitability. Factor in all of them and they're like the Titanic right before the ship broke in half.
I just cannot understand why anyone would take that job. I get wanting to add "CEO" to your resume, and in normal circumstances even if you bungle things pretty badly it wouldn't really matter. But everyone would know you're just a puppet and Twitler (or maybe Xitler) was the one who was really calling the shots. Your job was to be chief taste tester of all those shit sandwiches and to be the one who is hauled in front of Congress or similar legislative body when politicians need a pound of flesh to make the voters happy.
Re: Not Holding Junk Debt
"I just cannot understand why anyone would take that job."
Money. If you don't pay the rent and the redundancy there's still enough money in the kitty to pay a CEO enough to make it worthwhile. When there isn't she'll move on - or retire on the profits (hers, not the company's).
It just won’t lie down and die…
Space Karen keeps raining blows on it, but the X/Twitter corpse is still twitching after a year of his efforts. Perhaps he needs to break out the garlic and wooden stake?
I wonder if this
Will turn out to be as big of a disaster as it appears it might? There are exactly zero people other than Elon Musk who will EVER want to use Twitter for video calling. He really is a grade A moron.
Xitter?
How do you pronounce it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Shitter?