Experts in social networks and managers of large accounts imagine what the day after a hypothetical closure of the platform would be like.
Everyone agrees that the digital conversation will not disappear and will seek other platforms to remain active
Monday November 28, 9 in the morning: Twitter doesn’t work. But it is not a specific technical failure: it has disappeared forever. It’s over tweet, retweet, follow our idols and browse while we wait at the bus stop. This scenario, which until recently would have seemed like something out of a script for dystopian soap opera, is considered today as “probable& rdquor; by countless users. And then what?
Seven experts in this social network and account managers with thousands of followers agree on the same prognosis, both pessimistic and hopeful: if Twitter closes tomorrow, we will all lose (although some more than others), but the global conversation will not disappear, rather it will Will migrate to other platforms. There is life after the death of the blue bird.
Minute 1: the great silence
Every day, 211 million active users from around the world post 500 million tweets at the rate of 357,000 per minute. Shutting down that flow of communication suddenly has consequences that, in the opinion of Francesc Puyol, expert in online metrics from the University of Navarra, go beyond the merely technological.
“That day democracy would lose because the Facebook model would win, which is closed and It generates ideological bubbles. Twitter is open and exposes you to opinions different from yours, that’s why provokes debates”, distinguish. “The great virtue of Twitter is that it brings the user information that he did not know he was interested in. Losing that channel would mean return to informative dynamics of 15 years ago& rdquor ;, laments this regular tweeter.
Celebrities and journalists: the big losers
From the side of the large content generators, the feeling of bewilderment it would be even bigger. “I imagine legions of influencers jumping from the balcony to see how the thousands of followers have vanished that they had& rdquor ;, predicts the technologist Enrique Dans, who does not hide the impact that this hypothetical blackout would have on his own information habits. “Twitter allows me to have instant feedback on what I publish and stay up to date on the topics that interest me. There is no other platform that gives so much with so little effort & rdquor ;, she acknowledges.
Aside from untold volumes of data and analytics, Twitter has been around for 16 years. bringing to light reportable situations that would hardly have transcended otherwise. “If it disappears, the big losers would be those stories and the journalists, who they could not access them or their protagonists& rdquor ;, assesses the journalist david suraresponsible for 20 years of the digital contents of the barcathe second one has more followers from Spain (41.5 million followers).
Brands, politicians and memes
Precisely, the large entities are the ones who the less they would mourn the death of the network. “For brands, Twitter is a territory full of cacti. They prefer other platforms, like instagram, where a negative comment has less visibility. If Twitter ends they will campaign through other channels& rdquor ;, calculates Saura.
Along with football, politics is the other Twitter users’ favorite playing field to generate debates, often riddled with disqualifications, and here is the only positive aspect that could bring the end of Twitter.
“It would lower the climate of Polarization of public life, stressed by so many messages of hate. let’s not forget that a tweet put in check to democracy in the United States & rdquor ;, warns Isaac Hernandezpolitical marketing consultant, who ventures a relationship “more door to door and face to face” between parties and voters in the post-Twitter era.
But not only hatred and zaskas feed the platform. What would happen to the humor that circulates daily on the net in the form of memes? “Most of the jokes that are sent on WhatsApp originate from Twitter. All of that would be lost, but in the end humor always makes its way,” he says. @diostuiteroone of the profiles that has taken the most advantage of irony on Twitterwhere he usually carries out campaigns through Agencia Plop in the company of his partners @norkorean Y @gerardotc.
The conversation won’t stop
In 2006, the year Twitter was born, myspace was the most used social network and no platform seemed capable of beating the Messenger from Microsoft to keep their users in touch. “The two of them disappeared, just like they did Google+, Fotolog and other later attempts. If not now, one day Twitter will also die, but the need to communicate will continue to exist”, analyze Manuel Morenoresponsible of ThirteenBitsmedium specialized in social networks and technology.
what will happen to el content that Twitter users uploaded to the network it’s not clear, but Jose Luis Orihuelaprofessor of Multimedia Communication at the University of Navarra, believes that no cause for concern. “Hosting companies will offer turnkey services to facilitate this transition,” he predicts.
He comes from blog ecosystem who saw the birth of Twitter and has set its expectations in Mastodon. Whichever platform takes over from Twitter, Orihuela is convinced that the vast family of tweeters will not be orphaned. “When a society adopts a tool and makes it part of its life, but it ceases to be produced due to the closure of the factory, the users always look for a substitute”, he assures.