Prominent Twitter users ticked off over fee lose verification:
Most of the 420 000 verified Twitter account users woke up this morning without the blue check next to their name — after refusing to pay an $ 8 a month subscription to the social media platform now owned by Elon Musk.
The check mark was introduced to prevent the impersonation of public figures and organisations. According to data platform Statista, verified accounts are less than 0.2% of Twitter’s almost 240 million daily active users.
Twitter announced on 24 March that it would begin winding down its legacy verified programme and removing legacy verified check marks for non-subscribers from 1 April. Legacy accounts are those with check marks that pre-date Musk’s takeover.
Twitter then said all legacy verified checkmarks would be scrapped by 20 April and directed individuals and organisations that wanted to be verified to a link where they could sign up.
Billionaire Musk launched Twitter Blue last year after buying the social media platform for $ 44 billion. To get the blue check now requires the $ 8 subscription. Launched in December 2022, Twitter Blue subscriptions were only made available in South Africa last month.
Locally, the Twitter Blue subscription for web users will cost R145 a month, while those who subscribe on iOS or Android will pay R200, according to My Broadband.
Annual subscriptions are R1 519 for web users and R2 099 for Android and iOS users.
Prominent figures such as Bill Gates, Malala Yousafzai and Beyonce have lost their verification.
Human Rights Watch said those who did not sign up would be at a disadvantage in Twitter’s algorithm. It said in a statement: “This will be awful for those who can’t afford the new fees. It will damage the effectiveness of local activists, including human rights activists, who have long used Twitter for grassroots organising.”
South Africans were not spared, with Trevor Noah, Siya Kolisi, John Steenhuisen and Thuli Madonsela joining the ranks of those stripped of the prestigious blue check which Musk once called the “lords and peasants system”.
In something of a backtrack, however, Musk confirmed he would be personally paying for the Twitter Blue subscriptions of some celebrities so they could keep their check mark, including actor William Shatner, basketball star LeBron James and author Stephen King.
Market Theatre needs funding as audiences, donor support decline:
The Market Theatre Foundation in Newtown, Johannesburg, has asked the department of sports, arts, and culture (DSAC) for additional grants as funding from sponsors and donors looks set to decline in the 2023-24 financial year.
The fundraising difficulties facing the foundation — which consists of the Market Theatre, Market Laboratory and the Market Photo Workshop and was declared a cultural institution in 2005 — are paired with the risks of limited revenue streams and falling audience numbers, said chief executive Tshiamo Sibande.
Theatres have struggled to draw back audiences in the aftermath of lockdown restrictions imposed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Because of the fundraising climate specifically for the arts, where [funders] would rather prioritise the issues that face the country like infrastructure, education, health, safety and security and social development … we are relying more and more on DSAC funding,” Sibande said during a briefing to parliament’s portfolio committee on sport, arts and culture.
In 2022, the Market Theatre staged 31 productions to 18 809 patrons, which cost R10.9 million to make but only generated an income of R5.2 million, Sibande said. The theatre receives about R10 million annually from 28 donors including Bloomberg Philanthropies, Goethe Institute, the United States embassy and the sports, arts and culture department.
“We rely quite heavily on sponsors to fund our core mandate of development and training,” said Sibande. “If we didn’t bring in the additional R8 to 12 million funds raised, or the R5 million we generate from the sale of our own goods, we wouldn’t be able to meet our basic targets, or open up as much as we do to artists.”
As an official cultural institution, the foundation contributes to the department’s mandate of social cohesion and safer communities. It works towards this by creating an authentic South African arts and culture experience and committed to providing the highest level of artistic excellence, said the foundation’s deputy chairperson, Andiswa Vikilahle.
“We also develop the next generation of SA performing and visual arts talent as well as engaging, educating, and developing a diverse community through the arts to become enthusiastic audience members and supporters,” she said.
The pressure to develop young artists and generate revenue is a consistent balancing act, Sibande told the parliament committee. The foundation’s core business is training and developing creative professionals, but there is also the pressure to increase ticket prices during a time where disposable income remains a challenge for South Africans.
“We had to rethink our pricing strategy because there is pressure to increase ticket prices,” said Sibande. “However, can people afford it? What is the reasonable amount, and can we categorise people and offer different prices for that?”
Sibande also noted the theatre’s efforts to generate its own income and supplement the government, by renting out the theatre as a venue for film and television.
“[Economic pressures] push us further down the giving list as art institutions. That’s why we’re under pressure to generate our own income. That pressure conflicts with us trying to be open to as many artists as possible to generate their own income,” she added.
No G7, no Phala Phala, no problem:
There’s not a cloud in sight as President Cyril Ramaphosa hosts his Namibian counterpart, Hage Geingob, for his first state visit to our fair, but somewhat shopsoiled, Republic.
It’s rather kind – and timeous – of Geingob to come to South Africa, given that the G7 doesn’t love us right now and we can do with a friend or two.
It’s also another reminder that Namibia has actually forgiven us for 75 years of armed occupation, murder and atrocity by the apartheid regime.
I would have been part of that army of occupation myself if I hadn’t dodged registration for the army at school – or if I’d handed myself in at Natal Command when they caught up with me – probably the smartest moves I’ve made in my life.
Hiding in plain sight in Durban while my classmates got called up was actually pretty easy – about as hard as secreting some money in the sofa – as the regime wasn’t as efficient as it was made out to be.
Getting a job and opening a bank account with no ID book was difficult, but not impossible, and way more fun than invading a neighbouring country in defence of white minority rule.
There are no cash-stuffed couches visible – exotic animals likewise – as the two heads of state meet to discuss matters of mutual interest, including trade, regional security and the Russia-Ukraine situation.
One would assume that the drama at Phala Phala won’t be on the agenda for discussion between the two leaders – or between their ministerial teams holding bilateral meetings as part of the state visit – or even at the banquet held after the day’s business has been done.
One would also assume that the millions lifted from our jefe’s sofa at Phala Phala was not counted as part of the $ 3 billion in South African exports that crossed the Orange River into Namibia in 2020.
Nor too, are the discussions on mutual security likely to focus on some border jumping that allegedly took place in an attempt to get Ramaphosa’s stash of shekels – and the mob who lifted it – back.
Fair enough.
No Ankole, mystery Sudanese billionaire or burglary jokes from the master of ceremonies before Ramaphosa’s welcoming speech at the gala dinner.
No one liners about abduction, torture or illegal border crossings to break the ice.
Most definitely no rendition of Pata Pata by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) band – just in case anybody sings along.
Like many of my fellow South Africans, I’m not in the least surprised that Cyril won’t be going to the upcoming G7 Summit in Japan to charge his iPad.
It’s not because our minister of electricity, Kgosientsho Ramakgopa, has been able to keep the lights on since Easter ended, obviating the need for the president to go abroad to power up his personal devices.
Ramakgopa hasn’t saved the day, to which our move to stage six of load shedding for the foreseeable future will attest.
Given that Ramaphosa has failed to remove powers from Gwede Mantashe to give Ramakgopa the powers to secure power, the electricity minister appears – like the rest of us – to be powerless – or at least disempowered – through no fault of his own.
Ramakgopa may have the moves, but Mantashe has the muscle, and it’s already pretty clear that the real power when it comes to our energy policy will remain with the ANC national chairperson, and not with the electricity minister – or the president.
Cyril also didn’t fail to make the invite list for the G7 invite list because of our foreign policy and our stance on the war in Ukraine, which isn’t exactly in line with the positions taken by the member states of the bloc.
It also wasn’t our move to extend the life of Eskom’s coal powered fleet, which may have costly implications further on down the road, that got our man dumped by the world’s richest and most powerful nations.
The real reason the Japanese government didn’t add Ramaphosa to the guest list for the forum in Hiroshima next month is that our president has ducked off from such forums to deal with the power crisis at home so often in the recent past that it no longer makes sense to invite him.
That said, if the G7 are already peeved with Ramaphosa and the rest of us for failing – how much more so after South Africa hosts Russian president Vladimir Putin later in the year, when he arrives in Mzansi for the Brics summit and heads home afterwards, unarrested.
We are led.
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