Elon Musk declares plan to charge ‘verified’ Twitter accounts a monthly fee to stay ‘blue-checked’

Uh oh, people can now buy the ‘verified’ mark on Twitter. 

Elon Musk announced on his Twitter account that ‘blue-checked’ Twitter accounts will be charged per month with added ‘privileges’ to verified accounts. 

The multi-billionaire entrepreneur said that this feature will give Twitter a revenue stream which will then give the social media platform the ability to reward content creators, which is odd because this means they have to pay Twitter for them to be paid.  

But for those who will avail this ‘product’ they will have the special privileges to be prioritized in replies, mentions and search, which according to musk, essential to defeat spam/scam. For content creators, this also gives them the feature to upload longer video and audio content. And they would see half as many ads

The price however is not fixed, because in a following tweet in the thread, he said that the price will be adjusted based on the buying power of the country. 

This is not Twitter’s first paid feature, as the social media company has also launched Twitter Blue which aims to enhance a user’s experience with the platform. Some features of this service is, editing a tweet, changing the color of the app, Bookmark Folders and so on. But it is only offered to limited countries. 

In their report, the Washington Post has a source who said that “Twitter Blue would be combined with the verification process and some of its existing features may be cut. 

This announcement, obviously, opened up a public discourse about whether the verification can really be ‘sold’.

But before Elon’s tweet, Jason Calcanis, a long time associate of Musk tweeted a poll asking his Twitter users how much would they pay to be verified and get a blue checkmark on the app. And as of writing, 81.6% of voters said that they wouldn’t pay for a check mark on their account. 

Twitter users voiced out their opinions by questioning why people would pay for that. 

https://twitter.com/hermitdad17/status/1587125870233374721

This sentiment also extends to the said tweet of Elon, users are now concerned that this will counter the real function of ‘verified’ accounts. 

Users argue about this effect on the legitimacy of the users. As it is a common trend on the internet to impersonate people who have clout to spread misinformation or any other maligned purposes. 

However, Elon counters by saying that Public figures have a secondary tag.

Which means that the blue check mark will not be a mark of ‘verified’ users but a tool for people to elevate their tweet and speech. 

This is a concern that’s also been voiced out by Filipino Journalists Mara Cepeda and Lian Buan, stating on Twitter that fake news peddlers and troll farms can easily pay the verification fee and their replies and tweets will be elevated.

 

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