It has been very evident since Elon Musk took control of Twitter that he is fixated on numbers. He ordered Twitter to add public “view count” data to tweets in December of the previous year. Tweets began to include public “bookmark counts” in March. However, it now seems as though Twitter is getting rid of one of its most crucial stats: video view counts.
Videos on Twitter are no longer showing how often they have been seen, as several Twitter users have observed. Previously, all users had access to this metric in the open.
It’s unclear whether this action is deliberate given that Twitter just changed its video player to incorporate playback speed and a mini-player in the picture-in-picture format. The missing view counts, according to several users, were first noticed more than a week ago.
As of right now, both the Twitter website and the iOS app no longer provide video view counts. As of the time of publication, Twitter for Android still allows users to access video view counts.
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If the removal of the video view count indicators was done on purpose, Twitter would become the least transparent social media network for video now. Every other significant video site, including Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, informs users of the number of views a video has gotten. It’s also a crucial indicator for advertisers because it directs how they should manage their advertising efforts on these sites.
As a result of the loss of this metric, users are now forced to rely on another that frequently portrays videos shared on Twitter as being more successful than they are.
The amount of impressions on a tweet is what Twitter refers to as “tweet views,” as was already mentioned. Users frequently receive stuff they may not be interested in as a result of Twitter’s algorithm frequently recommending tweets. The view count of a tweet that contains a video does not accurately reflect how many users actually watched the video if the user does not play the embedded video.
Matt Binder from Mashable tweeted about not having a video view anymore.
Musk has centered video on the platform in recent months, as attempts to monetize Twitter via subscription-based services have fallen short. The company has been experimenting with bringing back its standalone live-streaming app, Periscope. Last week, Musk announced that Twitter Blue subscribers could now upload videos that are up to 2-hours long.
As the new updates come, we shall update you about them.
