0 - Prologue
Today, I was scrolling through X (formerly Twitter) on my phone, as I have done countless times before, when I stumbled upon a post quoted by the site owner, Elon Musk, saying that X (formerly Twitter) was the number one news app on the USA app store.
I was currently waiting for my order at the Burger King in the local train station, which actually only recently reopened from a complete overhaul, and let me just take some time to talk about that. This Burger King was doing fine before, it looked fine before. They added ordering stations which is nice because the foreign employees neither speak nor understand anything past the most basic German expressions, but the remodel mainly overhauled the design. Now everything is white and clean, like the trend in recent times dictates for some reason, but also they seem to have gotten a new ordering system. Now, that too wouldn't be an issue if they weren't using Microsoft Windows. Due to their poor operating system choice, my order was somehow lost that day because their system kept restarting (keep in mind that the store has been open for at least a month by now), so I had a lot of time to kill. But also, let me also complain about the design remodel. It's new, it's white. That's about it. But let me ask you, in what world do we live in where the design of restaurants is so strictly dictated by some bullshit "hyper-modern trends"? The previous design did not even look that out of date, it was fine. It had more colors, had way more personality and individuality. So why are we replacing everything with this soulless white "modern" design slop? It's just like George Orwell predicted in his hit novel 1984, we are being robbed of our individuality and personality to just become another brick in the wall! We need to rise up against these attempts to suppress us and fight back!
I - News App?
however, I am getting a bit carried away. Anyway, there I was, sitting at the Burger King, reading this post, and was just confused.
what do you mean news app?
I thought in my head. X (formerly Twitter) is not a news app, huh?
So I decided to investigate further. Apple, the company behind the App Store, has an article on App Store categories and their usage which I will be referencing multiple times in this post.
In this article, apple has some info on how to choose tags, listing three criteriae for what category to choose for your app.
So let's break them down.
II - Apple's criteriae
first, apple writes
Your app’s purpose. Your primary category should be the one that best describes the main function or subject matter of your app.
Now, I will come back to this later, but I think we can agree that the first purpose that comes to mind when thinking about X (formerly Twitter) is not "sharing news". But we don't even have to keep this on a subjective opinion. In the same support article, Apple provides descriptions of every category. For "news", apple writes:
Choose News if your app serves content via newsreader or digest format, or if your app is for a digital-first or broadcast-first media outlet with frequent content updates.
This is in no way a description of X (formerly Twitter). X (formerly Twitter) lets users post short posts within 280 characters (with an exception for premium (formerly Twitter blue) users). This is not of a "newsreader or digest format". Furthermore, even if the format does not fit, the more obvious problem here is that the majority of posts on the platform do not talk about "news", which Apple conveniently defines as
"information about current events or developments in areas of interest such as politics, entertainment, business, science, technology[.]"
Now, let me ask you what you think of when you hear X (formerly Twitter)'s name. You might think of the infamous "Twitter Artists", you might think of a toxic shithole. You might even think of an actually good place with interesting topics. But you surely do not think of it as a place where you find news.
To further clear up what Apple calls news, they have conveniently provided a few examples. The ones for "news" are:
For example: television, video, radio, or online news outlets or programs, RSS readers.
None of these are even remotely similar to X (formerly Twitter). Sure, some actual news outlets have accounts on the app, which are posting real news that fit Apple's description, but those accounts make up a small minority and are only using the app's Social Media format to spread their content, usually by linking to their own website where they provide full news articles. These accounts are not the only ones who use the platform "correctly", no. X (formerly Twitter) is made for posts. Period. yes, you can post news, but you can also post ANYTHING else (if it fits withing 280 characters of course).
But hey, that's only one out of three guides Apple provided. Surely X (formerly Twitter) matches the other two.
Well, I am sorry to disappoint. Apple's second criteria is the following:
Where users naturally look for an app like yours. Understanding your audience will help you identify the category in which they will likely look for your app. Will they consider your app to be more of a social network app or a photography app?
let me just repeat that question there again. "Will they consider your app to be more of a social network app or a photography app". Now let me ask you, would you consider X (formerly Twitter) to be more of a social network app or a news app? The answer should be obvious. Now let me ask you, if you were to look for X (formerly Twitter) on the App Store, would you search in the "news" category or the "social network" category? Again, X (formerly Twitter) is a social network which allows users to create posts of ANY kind, including, but not limited to, news, with news making up a tiny fraction of all posts on the platform.
The third criteria to me is just a "last resort" put in the article for edge case apps which still can't be categorized after the first two criteriae. It reads:
Which categories contain the same type of apps as yours. Research how similar apps are categorized — users may already know to visit these categories to find this type of app.
Looking into the "news" category, you find apps like the New York Times. Apps, which are not social networks that allow for posts of any kind. So let's keep this short, X (formerly Twitter) fails this one as well.
III - You're Not Here Alone
So with all these three criteriae failing, the ONLY argument for X (formerly Twitter)'s categorization as a news app is that the user created content can also contain news, and gee it's a bad one. This could apply to ANY app which allows for user created content. Geometry Dash levels can contain news, so is Geometry Dash a news app? YouTube has news channels, so is YouTube a news app? Reddit has subreddits for news, so is it a news app? Apparently yes, because Reddit is categorized as a news app as well. The App Store has a lot more examples of this, but these two are the most obvious.
IV - But... Why?
But why? Doesn't it just make the app less discoverable? Why would these companies knowingly miscategorize their apps? When even I found Apple's article, the surely this billion dollar companies can too.
To find an answer to this question we need to get back to where it all started, Elon Musk's post. The news category is way emptier than the social network category. Maybe it has a few local news apps, but that's basically it. It's easy for X (formerly Twitter) to climb the charts in this more empty category. Then, people like Elon Musk and his followers can brag about their app being "#1" and present it in a better light than it is. Another possibility would be Elon Musk using these App Store categories to try and steer the platform into a certain direction, with how often he talks about X (formerly Twitter) being "the voice of the public" now and "the only way to find real news", but surely he'd try a bit harder than just some category changes the people who already downloaded the app will never even notice.
V - What's The Big Deal?
So why is this a problem? Some minor miscategorization which barely has an impact on any actual users, what's the big deal?
The problem is not in the miscategorization, it is the mentality that comes with it, especially prominent with Elon Musk and his way of presenting facts. The problem is this trend that's coming up that is fooling more and more people and will actively lead to the destruction of any democratic system in this world.
It is the problem of taking actual, proven information and facts and then spinning them to fit a narrative. It is the half truths being spread everywhere, with them being a big problem especially in the political space. As someone who knows a bit about German politics, and with Elon Musk being someone who knows nothing about Germany politics, it was shocking to see Elon Musk both using half truths of German politics to spread his narrative, while also being manipulated by half truths spread around by populist and fascist politicians. All of this is leading to the biggest problem of the internet from a political standpoint. People spreading half truths in a populist way are gaining traction way more than actual fact-based information and it is radicalizing people in a bad way, on both sides of the political spectrum. This can only be countered by the masses by actually researching before liking and spreading a narrative, because let's be honest, people like Elon Musk know EXACTLY what they are doing and will not stop doing that. But let's be honest again, we are going to see even more people falling for these tricks, especially in the age of artificial interlligence, so I'm afraid that we will see a dystopia come to life if everything continues how it is, with the only two types of people you can find being those manipulating or those being manipulated, with any real voice of reason being drowned out by the noise of populist puppets and the cries of what once was. Free speech is curse and blessing in one, and with how things developing, I do sometimes wonder if a world without free speech controlled by someone with morals wouldn't be better than whatever we have now.
VI - Epilogue
Gewöhnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hört,
Es müsse sich dabei doch auch was denken lassen.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
The world is full of problems. Some are less important, like a social media app's miscalssification, some are more important, like my Burger King order being lost due to their soulless remodel. At the end of the day, we're all going to die, so why not write a rant like this?
this post was 100% written by me, no ai. IWKMS