Kaleidoscope 2023: Polemic Changes In Twitter Name To Racism Stickers Against Palestine On WhatsApp

Controversial social media Kaleidoscope in 2023 (photo: dock. unsplash)

JAKARTA Year 2023 is the year the Covid-19 pandemic subsides, the number of social media users is still increasing globally. From Kepios data, observers of digital trends, growth reached 4.5 percent.

As of October this year, more than 4.9 billion people or about 61.4 percent of the global population have used social media. This figure shows that social media users have a considerable role in the development of each platform.

Despite its updates that prioritize users, many social media have been criticized this year for various problems, ranging from changing platform names, the birth of new platforms, to important features removed by the government.

Some of the social media controversies that had shocked the virtual world have become one of VOIrangkum. The following are the five most debated controversies throughout 2023.

Around April, Twitter sparked anger from its users because the blue tick policy was changed. In the past, the owner of the blue tick was just the accounts of politicians, artists, labels, or other major influential accounts. However, since early April, this policy has changed.

All Twitter users can have a blue tick just by paying. This policy makes the majority of Twitter users want to leave the app. In the midst of Twitter's increasingly heated situation, Meta introduces THreads.

When born on July 5, this application was invaded by many Twitter users. They were so enthusiastic about the presence of Threads that the app broke records with 100 million downloads in a very short time.

Although Threads had gained a lot of attention at the start, this application began to be abandoned due to the lack of user interface (UI). Migrant Twitter users realize that UI and the Threads feature have not been able to catch up with Twitter.

From the Similarweb data, daily active users in Threads fell from 49 million to 23.6 million in just a week. This is very natural because the features are still lagging behind. However, Threads is a fast-growing application.

Thanks to the many updates ranging from notifications,tagtopics in the form of Hyperlinks, re-posts, and various other new features, the number of active users of Threads has finally increased. Last October, Threads managed to reach 73 million active users.

Since taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has come under fire for an unexpected policy reshuffle. The Tesla owner began presenting a paid system, changing the use of blue ticks, and limiting tweets per day.

The peak of user anger arose as Musk changed his Twitter name and logo. Since appearing in 2006, Twitter has been synonymous with a blue bird logo, but Musk replaced it with an X-letter full of black.

After being replaced in August this year, Musk's interest in letters X and black creates a number of problems. Platform X is considered to have violated the App Store policy because the application in digital stores must at least use two letters.

Initially, this app didn't appear on the App Store. However, it seems that X has made a special deal because it managed to reappear on the App Store. As a result, many developers are angry that the App Store has violated the policies they have made.

Apart from getting insults from paradevelopers, X Corp has been sued by a number of companies. There are hundreds of trademarks that use the letters X in them, but Musk gets rid of the entire app in an instant.

Now, everyone looking for or thinking about X will immediately refer to Twitter. This is a problem with X Social Media, advertising services for law firms, because they have nothing to do with platform X.

In 2021, TikTok introduces one of the features that is considered to help many Micro and Medium Small Enterprises (MSMEs), namely TikTok Shop. In addition to helping sellers, this feature makes it easier for users to buy goods on social media.

After two years of running, TikTok was forced to revoke the Shop feature because of the latest regulations from the Indonesian government. With the Regulation of the Minister of Trade (Permendag) Number 31 of 2023, social media cannot concurrently serve as e-commerce.

Penutupan TikTok Shop mendapat kecaman dari banyak pihak, baik para selebritas, pelaku UMKM, hingga para pengguna aktif fitur tersebut. Sejak dirilis, fitur ini berhasil menambah lapangan pekerjaan sehingga penutupan TikTok Shop menjadi perhatian publik.

Although this feature was closed last October, TikTok continues to try to bring back its flagship features. On Monday, December 11, TikTok officially announced that it had become a partner of PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia.

With an investment of 1.5 billion US dollars, TikTok Shop will operate under the control of PT Tokopedia. TikTok Shop was first released on December 12 National Online Shopping Day (Harbolnas) with direct supervision from relevant ministries and institutions.

Amid the heat of the Hamas and Israeli wars, WhatsApp has come under fire from the public because of a Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based sticker featuring pictures of boys and gunmen looking for Palestinian words.

This sticker was first discovered by The Guardian. When users type the keyword of Palestinian Muslims, WhatsApp will show four pictures of children holding AK-47 rifles.

However, when users look for Israel's keywords or only Israel, WhatsApp will feature ordinary children playing football or reading. For this comparison, WhatsApp has received a lot of criticism that Meta is accused of taking sides with Israel.

More than 100 brands and political candidates have stopped their ads on platform X after Media Matters for America (MMFA), a nonprofit organization, shared research results on the display of ads on the app.

According to MMFA's findings, X placed advertisements from large companies in addition to antisemitism content that supported the Nazi movement and promoted Hitler. Some of the advertisements found by MMFA are advertisements for Apple, IBM, Xfinity, and Oracle brands.

For the withdrawal of hundreds of advertisers in just a few days, Elon Musk immediately filed a lawsuit on Monday, November 20. According to Musk and his team's findings, MMFA has manipulated user experience (UI) regarding the layout of the ad.

So far, the big companies that have stopped advertising are Apple, Warner Bros. Discovery, IBM, Comcast, Ubisoft, Airbnb, Uber, and Coca-Cola. Many other companies have stopped their ads, including Disney.

After these advertisers withdrew, Musk had said at one of the events that the actions of all these companies could harm platform X. Not only detrimental, platform X could go bankrupt and disappear from civilization.

Musk's words may be true. Based on the New York Times forecast, hundreds of advertisers who withdrew made platform X lose 75 million US dollars or around Rp. 1.1 trillion. If this figure continues to grow, X may die.