I think it is time for a Kenyan-made social media platform.
Kenyans, Nigerians, and South Africans are the most popular Twitter users in Africa.
Their tweets are hilarious and they usually ‘go to war’ with each other over issues, both trivial and serious.
Yesterday, Twitter suspended accounts en masse.
Most of these accounts were accused of platform manipulation; never mind, some were even dormant.
Ekoroi understands that the US social media giant is trying to reduce the number of bots as it gears up to face Billionaire Elon Musk in court this October 2022.
Maybe in a desperate attempt, the Artificial Intelligence algorithm was made with a very dire criteria to wipe out accounts and see which ones will appeal and be reinstated.
Bots are forever
Personally, I find it counterproductive, because bots are here to stay.
In 2020, at the height of Coronavirus SarsCOV-2 disease, Twitter implemented its urgent and most intense bot removal operation.
It locked accounts, for everyone who was not verified by the platform, and asked each account to be signed in by providing mobile phone numbers where a code was sent to unlock an account.
Some accounts came back, some didn’t.
Those that didn’t come back were either, accounts of dead people, people who don’t know how to use the platform appeal mechanism (some don’t even know it exists) and bots.
As the US 2016 elections showed, some people would even create over 30,000 Twitter accounts, mostly bots, and load them into the TweetDecks.
TweetDeck had mass retweets, mass follows and mass-like feature in those days. Through these, they would manipulate trending topics with a click of a button.
Those days, Twitter didn’t require one to include their mobile phone number in their accounts.
So, most bots died with that; as it is not easy to wait on a code for 30,000 accounts. But there is a catch.
I’ve seen that in USA, there are services that can offer fake phone numbers for Twitter accounts. So Bots are here for life.
Elon Musk and Twitter are fighting a losing battle against bots, they cannot win. They should just get a good valuation of the company, which I believe is 800 million dollars and part ways. – Ekoroi
Twitter is easy to use and doesn’t appear busy or cumbersome as Facebook. Everyone can microblog their issues and get instant feedback from their followers.
But Twitter is also overrated.
It is on Twitter that people don’t click links to articles as compared to Facebook and Telegram.
The company is fighting a losing battle and it might be on its way down in terms of shares going to zero. Thanks to Elon Musk who exposed the bot issue on the platform.
Twitter makes one feel good having followers, many retweets and also trending hashtags. The dopamine and endorphin this generates is well known to one user we spoke to.
Lagaless agreed that yesterday’s purge took out all his accounts, even after his main account was suspended.
“The 4th of August 2022 will be a day to remember in my social media life. Twitter made me, Twitter broke me. It is the first time since 2015 that I don’t have Twitter installed on my phone. I uninstalled it and cleared the cache on both my phone and laptop,” Lagaless wrote to us.
He added, “I have made money on Twitter, and as most agree, the roller coaster of opening accounts, gaining followers and having the suspended is not for the fainthearted. It is truly disheartening, to say the least”.
Twitter has put a stop to many people’s source of livelihood.
Another executive from a FinTech firm also commented on his company accounts suspension:
‘Nimeboeka sana’.
Many other Kenyans Ekoroi spoke to also intimated about moving fully to Facebook.
However, my experience shows that many will do this for a week or two and then miss Twitter.
So here is a question for you:
Will you sign up for a Kenya-made social media platform that has the characteristics of Twitter, with a tinge of Facebook (not as cumbersome) and TikTok combined?
It is in the making.
I’ve seen it; it is very user-friendly on pc and mobile.
FEATURED IMAGE CREDITS: Google
