Telsa boss, Elon Musk who now officially owns the microblogging website, Twitter Inc. is reportedly said to launch a new method to generate revenue on the social platform by making users pay for their verification badges. According to The Verge, Musk has given employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave.
Musk announced the plan to revamp the verification process in a tweet while responding to a user who said that despite having a large follower base, he was denied the coveted verification badge.
“The whole verification process is being revamped right now.” he tweeted.
@sriramk any chance in helping with verification? Denied some 4-5 times despite large following and working to share spaceflight/rocket launches to the masses via my photography. Published in a plethora of huge outlets but Twitter doesn’t seem to care! https://t.co/efL1l1H2d9
— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) October 30, 2022
The Verge reports that Twitter now under Musk plans to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription.
The Verge, which cited internal correspondence, reports that Twitter plans to charge people $19.99 per month to keep their blue tick verification status. It says the plan involves quadrupling the price for Twitter Blue – the company’s subscription service – and making verification one of its features.
Already Verified users would be given 90 days to subscribe or face losing their blue tick, it reports.
On Sunday, Musk set a deadline of Nov. 7 for the employees working on the project to implement the changes or risk losing their jobs. Since the acquisition, several key players, including Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s former CEO, Chief Finance Officer; Ned Segal, Policy Chief; Vijaya Gadda, and General Counsel Sean Edgett have been fired.
Twitter Blue, introduced in 2021, is a subscription service that offers extra perks such as allowing users to view ad-free articles from some publishers, upload videos in 1080p, undo a tweet, and edit a published tweet, among other premium features.
It is currently optional and costs $4.99 per month. The subscription service, however, has only been launched in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and is yet to be rolled out globally.
