Day four of Elon Musk’s reign over Twitter. As the US tech service “The Verge” reports, Twitter wants to start charging its users up to $19.99 a month for a small blue tick “soon”. As part of Musk’s mid-term match plan, Twitter plans to make verification a key feature of its premium subscription service, Twitter Blue.
Current Twitter Blue subscribers pay $4.99 per month for additional features such as an edit button, custom reading mode, bookmarks, and more.
Other US media also want to know that the yet to be installed “Management Team Musk” wants to triple the price. With the added incentive that unverified users have the option to put a blue tick next to their “handle”.
Existing verified users have 90 days to subscribe to Twitter Blue or lose their verification, according to The Verge researchers.
With a little money, maybe soon everyone will be able to pose as a celebrity
According to US media, this paid verification for Twitter raises a number of other problems. The Washington Post analyzes that the original purpose of verification is to combat misinformation and parody accounts by having certain users and organizations verify their sendership.
By selling verification to a willing clientele, Twitter risks users falsely impersonating celebrities, politicians, reporters or other well-known figures and posting false information that could easily spread without the opportunity to verify the facts.
According to fellow TED think tank Katie Mack, “If this change does go through, it will generally be much more difficult to know what information is in any way reliable. Or come from a real person or organization. So probably more noise and less reliability…”
Earwolf co-founder Jeff Ullrich suspects on the entertainment platform “Consequence”: “If we assume that people only for [Verifizierung] pay because it has value, we can appreciate that there is a benefit to being verified. That benefit for many people is credibility and access to conversations/people/opportunities/equality that they would otherwise be denied.”
More profit, less discourse
Ullrich continues: “Ultimately, this creates a platform for those who want to afford the service. It makes for a narrow view of, well, everything. The company may increase in value. But the discourse that some people are here for is depreciating — provided you value low-income people.”
“Twitter Blue” is currently only available in selected countries anyway; for example in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It remains unclear what would happen to the verified users in other countries.
Musk has reportedly told the rest of the Twitter crew that he plans to roll out the new feature fairly soon, by November 7, 2022 to be exact. The course of the new boss remains ruthless: employees who do not meet this deadline risk being fired.