Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Amid his endless spitballing of new features for the social media network he reluctantly bought, CEO Elon Musk has announced plans for Twitter to no longer display which device a tweet was sent from, whether itâs an iPhone, Android phone, or Twitterâs web client. âWe will finally stop adding what device a tweet was written on,â Musk tweeted, adding that he thinks the feature is a âwaste of screen space & compute.â
âLiterally no one even knows why we did that,â he added.
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 âŚ
â Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2022
Okay, so three things. First off: who knows whether this change will actually come to pass. Muskâs takeover of Twitter has been chaotic to say the very least, and the rollout of the Tesla CEOâs most high-profile new feature, paid verification, had to be paused in the face of massive problems. When it comes to changes being made at Twitter under Muskâs leadership, you canât truly be certain a new feature is launching until itâs actually launched.
Second: there are plenty of legitimate reasons âwhy we did that.â Inventor of the hashtag Chris Messina argues that showing what device sent a tweet was a good way of providing visibility to formerly third-party Twitter clients like Tweetie and TweetDeck and provides a âstatus indicatorâ to show whether a tweet was sent from desktop or mobile. And Twitterâs former CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey agrees. In response, he simply replied that Messina was âcorrect.â
correct
â jack (@jack) November 14, 2022
But third, and perhaps most importantly, is that Twitterâs ability to show what kind of device sent a tweet is a fun feature.
Mostly, it has to be said, thatâs been because of some good old-fashioned fuck ups when social media managers for various non-Apple phone brands have been caught tweeting from iPhones (often by chief of the âTwitter police,â YouTuber Marques Brownlee). One Microsoft executive got caught cheating on the Windows Phone with an iPhone not once but twice. What better way of promoting a Google Pixel phone and sticking it to Tim Cook than by tweeting at the Apple CEO from one of his companyâs own handsets? Or why not express your love for Samsungâs new Note 3 using the medium of an iPhone?
Android smartphone manufacturer Huawei found itself at the center of two high-profile âTwitter for iPhoneâ mishaps. The first time, brand ambassador Gal Gadot was caught tweeting about how she loved her new Huawei Mate 10 Pro from an iPhone. But donât worry everyone, Gadot was quick to assure CNET that she does in fact âlove my Huawei P20 and Mate10Proâ but that a member of her publicity team had posted the promotional tweet from their iPhone.
Gal Gadot with the Huawei ad… tweeted from an iPhone. Niceeeee pic.twitter.com/aEKJVwoyBL
â Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) April 24, 2018
Having some fun at a famous celebrityâs expense is one thing (imagine that), but I have to admit I felt a little more sympathy for Huaweiâs external PR team when Reuters reported that the company had demoted two employees and docked their pay by the equivalent of over $700 a month for sending the companyâs âHappy New Yearâ tweet from an iPhone.
But perhaps the best comedic usage of Twitterâs device indicator feature of all time came from an account simply named âDorothyâ who, in 2019, claimed to have tweeted from a smart refrigerator after her mom confiscated all her electronics. âI do not know if this is going to tweet I am talking to my fridge what the heck my Mom confiscated all of my electronics again,â Dorothy tweeted. Sure enough, a little note beneath the (since deleted) tweet suggested it had been sent from âLG Smart Refrigerator.â
Other tweets from âDorothyâ also carried notes claiming to have been sent from Nintendoâs 3DS handheld and Wii U console. âIâm leaving forever. My mom took my phone. Iâll miss you all sm. Iâm crying. Goodbye,â she allegedly tweeted via the Nintendo 3DSâs Image Share feature.
Screenshot by BuzzFeed News
Dorothyâs tweet, which was allegedly sent from an LG smart fridge.
As BuzzFeed later reported, the incident was almost certainly faked. Itâs relatively easy to manually tell Twitter what device you want it to show your tweets are from. Also, the social network didnât offer an app for LG smart fridges, and while it would technically be possible to send a tweet via a smart applianceâs built-in web browser, these tweets would likely carry the âTwitter Web Appâ label rather than anything specific to the device.
But, look, comedy doesnât have to be true to be funny. The idea of a teenager being so determined to tweet that they resort to using Nintendo consoles and a refrigerator is funny enough, and itâs a neat creative flourish to have the punchline to each post delivered by Twitterâs supposedly impartial interface.
Iâm not sure I buy Muskâs reasoning for getting rid of the feature (which, youâll recall, is that itâs a âwaste of screen space & computeâ). His changes to Twitterâs verification marks have already necessitated adding an entirely new âofficialâ designation to every single tweet from select accounts, which seems like a far bigger waste of screen space, and Twitter engineers have lined up to vocally criticize Muskâs understanding of the Twitter performance problems that have supposedly necessitated the removal of the feature.
Yes, there are only so many times you can laugh at an Android brand account for tweeting from an iPhone. But at a certain point, Muskâs willingness to turn Twitter upside down risks ditching the small features that have made everyoneâs favorite hellsite an occasionally funny place to hang out.