Twitter reportedly working on paywalled video feature

Unsurprisingly, things continue to change at Twitter under Elon Musk at a breakneck pace. One of the latest developments is a plan to paywall video content on the social platform.

The details come from The Washington Post (via The Verge), which obtained an internal company email. According to the email, users would be able to enable a ‘Paywalled Video’ feature after adding a video to a tweet and could select from preset prices, such as $1, $2, $5, or $10. Moreover, other users would still be able to retweet the video without paying to view it.

The Post also noted it’s unclear if the video plan predates Musk’s acquisition. It certainly sounds like it could — as The Verge notes, Twitter has long been exploring ways to increase revenue outside of advertising. Alternate revenue sources include things like Super Follows, which let users pay for subscriber-only content, and the Twitter Blue subscription.

Regardless of whether the paywalled video idea predated Musk, his Twitter acquisition appears to have accelerated the feature — Twitter employees reportedly have just one or two weeks to launch the video paywall feature.

However, the tight deadline may lead to other problems for Twitter. It reportedly would leave the company’s internal review team as little as three days to evaluate the risks of charging for video content, such as what happens if a user uploads copyrighted content and charges for it.

The Verge also highlights potential issues with Twitter’s porn community. Twitter remains one of the few major social media platforms to allow adult content, and while the community might benefit from a paywalled video feature, it could also cause problems with advertisers and payment providers (as a reminder, payment providers have caused problems for other adult content platforms like OnlyFans).

Source: The Washington Post Via: The Verge