How A Gloomy 2023 Cast A Dark Shadow Over X’s India Journey In 2023

After rebranding itself to X, the microblogging platform started its 2023 India journey by axing more than 90% of its workforce and closing most of its offices in the country.

Nothing changed for Twitter, but name, as legacy issues persisted, throwing a spanner in the social media platform’s progress in 2023.

To the company’s dismay, it remained in conflict with the Indian government as the Centre introduced a wave of new digital regulations.

From the DPDP Act to the Telecom Bill, X found itself amidst a plethora of adverse regulations throughout the year, managing additional compliance mandates imposed by the new laws.

The social media giant’s attempts at legal recourse against the Centre’s “innocuous” takedown orders faltered, with the Karnataka High Court siding with the government, resulting in a hefty penalty.

The Elon Musk-led platform also faced the ire of the government for its failure to crack its whip on fake news and misinformation on the platform. 

Despite the challenges, 2023 turned out to be the year of rapprochement and a turnaround for Twitter, now X. The mass layoffs and excessive cost-cutting exercise yielded results as X’s Indian arm minted a profit even as focus on building alternate revenue channels brought more money into its coffers. 

For a moment, it appeared that Instagram Threads could emerge as a major contender against X but the former fizzled out as quickly as it erupted into fame. 

All in all, 2023 also turned out to be a year of outreach, as X boss Elon Musk met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hinting at some bonhomie even as Indian authorities and X fought pitched battles back home. 

Will hopes for a confrontation-free 2024 in India, let’s steal a glance at how 2023 turned out for the social media platform.

X’s Sabre-Rattling With The Indian Govt

It was another year of full-blown confrontation between X and the Indian government. At the outset of the year, the two parties were locked in a legal showdown in the Karnataka High Court over a case filed by X over “innocuous” takedown orders issued by the Centre. The saga somewhat culminated as the HC sided with the government and slapped a fine of INR 50 Lakh on the social media platforms. 

However, the company then filed an appeal against the order and the legal tussle is expected to continue well into 2024.

Globally, India continued to be one of the biggest sources of legal notices for the removal of content in the first half of 2023. However, this was just the tip of the iceberg. As the government unveiled a series of reforms to digital laws in the country, Twitter found itself in a regulatory quagmire. These new laws put additional mandates on the company and instituted strict penalties for non-compliance, going as far as bringing safe harbour protections under question. 

The government also pulled up the platform for the failure to crack the whip on misinformation and fake news on its platform even as GenAI-enabled deepfakes emerged as a new headache for the social media major. 

“X will find it challenging to convince their users that the content they see is human-generated, and not produced by AI bots. Another challenge is to prevent the spread of misinformation and manipulation of narratives propagated by tireless AI bots for and against governments and large corporations or groups,” Shorthills AI cofounder Pawan Prabhat told Inc42.

Piling on top of that was the wave of child sexual abuse material and related content on X that dominated the platform. To curb this menace, the platform suspended more than 98 Lakh accounts for spreading and tweeting such content. 

Such was the clamour that the Centre called the company a ‘habitual non-compliant platform’ that undermined the Indian government. Alongside, MoS for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar warned the platform of removing Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or losing safe harbour protections.

Already reeling under the weight of regulatory troubles, comments by the then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sparked a major storm for the platform in the country. He claimed that Indian authorities raided the homes of Twitter India employees and shut down its offices in the country.  

This opened up another font of confrontation for X as Chandrasekhar lambasted the platform for violating Indian laws and showing reluctance in removing questionable content from the platform during Dorsey’s tenure.

Such was the fallout that X’s head of policy in India and South Asia, Samiran Gupta, resigned from the company as the legal tussle between the Indian government and the platform intensified. 

Charting A Turnaround

Amid the figurative tug-of-war between the government and X, 2023 turned out to be a positive year for the platform on the financial front. X’s local arm, Twitter Communications India, reported a net profit of INR 30 Cr in the fiscal year ended March 2023 against a net loss of INR 32 Cr in the previous year. 

During the same period, revenue shot up 32% to INR 208 Cr from INR 157 Cr in FY22. 

While the company did not publicly release reasons for its turnaround, the sudden spike in profitability was attributed to a massive cost-cutting exercise that was undertaken at the company after Elon Musk took over the reins of the company in October 2022. 

While 80%-90% of the company’s Indian staff was fired at the fag end of 2022, X also shut down its Delhi and Mumbai offices to streamline operations in early 2023, as it embarked on a mega restructuring exercise. 

While the platform still continues to run without an India head, its focus has now moved towards shoring up revenues. Alongside, X also introduced its premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, (chargeable at INR 650-INR 900) for users in India to spruce up its topline. 

What also took the cake was the company’s interesting strategy to retain users and shore up engagement. As part of a monetisation avenue for creators in 2023, X began rolling out payouts to top creators, which attracted more user eyeballs to the microblogging platform. 

Despite every effort, India continued to be a challenging proposition for the company. 

How Will 2024 Bode For X?

Home to more than 27.3 Mn active users, India is the third-largest market for X. Ironically, the nation’s contribution to Twitter’s total revenue continues to be non-significant, largely marred by razor-thin margins and price-sensitive Indian users and advertisers.  

Stepping in 2024, the company could be looking to fix many of the aforementioned challenges. Further, with consumer spending expected to improve in 2024, X could see more revenues flowing in. 

Meanwhile, the Musk-led platform could also be looking to explore more strategies to resuscitate user engagement and add new users to its kitty as it expands its creator payout initiatives. Alongside, it may continue to ramp up its focus on monetisation. 

But, much more needs to be done. Frequent outages have so far left many users exasperated while the haphazard rollout of Twitter Blue has invited bad press. As 2023 comes to an end, the stage has been set for X to embrace a new tomorrow in the country.