After a long week of Twitter news and rumors, Twitter’s new boss Elon Musk is trying to overhaul how verification works. This not only changes who gets the blue check mark but potentially creates new rules for users in order to identify fake and fraudulent activity on the platform. Before the overhaul, Twitter had about 423,000 accounts verified with a blue tick.
Twitter tick mark was launched to verify the official accounts of artists, public figures, athletes, institutions, government officials, and other official organizations. It was for the protection of public figures and celebrities names at the risk of being misused fraudulently. For the benefit of all users, the Blue tick is a way to let people know they can trust the information shared by these accounts.
The Twitter iOS app has been updated to support and the update says you have to pay $7.99/month for the Blue Badge. According to, the Director of Product Management at Twitter, the company is currently “testing in real-time and tweets that the features aren’t quite live yet, its all coming soon.” So, it looks like this update isn’t fully implemented yet.
Twitter Backlash
Many famous figures criticized the Elon Musk on chargin on free speech including Alexandria Ocasio Cortez who said “free speech is actually an $8/mo subscription plan,” Elon responds and says “please continue complaining, but it will cost $8.”
A handful of celebrities and influencers have left the social media platform, worried about what will happen under Elon Musk’s headship.
Moreover, there were reports that Twitter’s workforce was halved, but later officials said there were few layoffs in the team working to curb the spread of misinformation, Some civil rights groups demanded action from Twitter’s top advertisers if Twitter fails to protect control of the content. Elon blamed these groups for the drop in revenue.
Musk has said his goal in buying Twitter is to strengthen “freedom of expression,” Musk also said that the social media platform’s mission is to be the world’s most accurate source of information, though there will be debate over how to get there and who is right. but some worries about this new overhaul.
If users agree to buy the plan, it could be a new source of revenue for Twitter, something that Elon wants for its $44 billion acquisition of the partially debt-financed company. With the new plan, users will have fewer ads, priority in replies & mentions, access to longer video posts, and search queries. Currently, the new Twitter Blue is only available in the iOS App Store released in some regions.
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