Elon Musk who recently became the CEO of Twitter announced on Sunday that the micro-blogging platform will no longer display whether a tweet was sent from an iPhone or an Android device. Musk tweeted the update with the caption “Hallelujah!” and cited Pubity which is a website for viral news and had previously informed users about it.
In Twitter next to the time and date on the user’s tweet is the label. According to Musk, the platform would “finally discontinue adding what device a tweet was made on,” in November. He considered the feature a “waste of screen space & compute”.
In response to a user, Musk wrote, “And we will finally stop adding what device a tweet was written on (waste of screen space & compute) below every tweet. Literally, no one even knows why we did that …”
On the platform, several users are appreciating the decision of Musk and others are posting memes that make fun of Samsung for tweeting from an iPhone about their Galaxy Unpacked Event. One more company Huawei was the target of “Twitter for iPhone” errors.
Recently, Gal Gadot who is the company’s ambassador also drew criticism for a tweet she sent from her brand new Huawei Mate 10 Pro while using an iPhone. Gadot immediately clarified to CNET that although she “loves her Huawei P20 and Mate 10 Pro,” a member of her public relations staff sent the advertisement from an iPhone.
In the publicly available guide, Twitter itself highlighted the benefit of the feature, expressing that these “tweet source labels” not only enable users to figure out how a tweet was made but also give them valuable context regarding messages. For instance, if a tweet was labeled as a “Mastodon-Twitter Crossposter,” it would be clear that it had been posted on both Twitter and Mastodon.
According to Twitter’s Help Centre, “Tweet source labels help you better understand how a Tweet was posted. This additional information provides context about the Tweet and its author. If you don’t recognize the source, you may want to learn more to determine how much you trust the content.”
Twitter also blocked Mastodon considering it a “virus.” The firm is preventing including links of their Mastodon accounts to users.
After the acquisition of Twitter by Musk many things have changed in the company from laying off thousands of employees to resigning another hundred employees. Musk even introduced automation in content moderation as a lack of workforce in the company.