Only tweets from “verified users” will show up on Twitter For You Page starting on April 15. Twitter boss, Elon Musk made the announcement via his Twitter account today, March 28th —noting that it is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. He, however, said it is ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service and don’t impersonate a human.
He also cites the “same reason” for why also only verified users are about to become the only accounts that can vote in polls.
This drastic measure follows a wave of legacy verified accounts vowing not to subscribe to Twitter’s paid verification service after the company’s announcement to take away legacy blue checks on April 1. It seems like the Twitter boss is doing everything to force them into submitting to his cash grab.
Since his take over in October last year, Musk gave his employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave. Since then Twitter has been revamping the whole verification process including taking away all legacy verified checkmarks from users unless they subscribe to Twitter Blue for $11 per month through in-app payment and $8 per month via the web.
Twitter Blue is now available globally and currently has over 450,000+ subscribers, which is 0.18% of the social site’s total user base.
Prior to the launch of the revamped Twitter Blue which gives blue ticks to everyone who can pay a monthly fee, these blue checkmarks were free and reserved for only public figures, companies, and organizations that Twitter considered “notable” in an effort to help users identify them from the many other accounts that could be using the same name or claiming to the who they weren’t.
However, following Musk’s USD$44 billion acquisition of the company, Musk revamped Twitter Blue as a new method to generate revenue on the platform putting several features behind a paywall.
Among the several premium perks to subscribers besides the blue verification checkmark, is the ability to make 4,000-character tweets, custom icons & themes, priority ranking in conversation replies, access to the ability to edit tweets, thread reader mode, upload longer videos in 1080p, see half Ads, bookmark folders, and top articles.
