UPDATE: Twitter users with high profile profiles will soon be required to pay $8 per Month to keep or get their blue checkmarks. The platform has used these marks for years to identify individuals whose identities have been verified.
Elon Musk is the new owner “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
Musk stated that users who pay for services will have priority, despite protests from Stephen King and others. “in replies, mentions and search,”He said that this was crucial to stop spam and allow users to upload long audio and video. “half as many ads.”
He also said that there will be a “paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us.”
PREVIOUSLY: Elon Musk confirmed that Twitter has plans to charge verified users for their blue checkmarks, amid vows by a series of prominent users that they won’t pay for the status.
Stephen King, the author, responded on Twitter to reports about the plans. “$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
Musk replied: “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”
As other users noted, King’s gripe is not over the sum, but the idea of paying for something that was once offered for free. Twitter verifies the identity of users and then assigns blue check marks to their Twitter handles.
But Musk is under the gun to boost Twitter’s revenue stream, while some advertisers have paused their spending as they determine what the platform will look like under his ownership. Musk has stated that he would like for Twitter to loosen its rules regarding content moderation, including the return of banned users such as Donald Trump. This may not be a good idea for advertisers, who try to stay out the hyper-partisan political fray.
Toni Braxton and Tea Leoni Braxton are two of the prominent Twitter users who have pledged to quit Twitter. Their concerns revolved primarily around the direction and potential for hate speech on the platform. Musk’s amplification of a conspiracy theory around the attack on Paul Pelosi certainly didn’t help his case that the platform would not become a cesspool. Musk announced his plans to create a committee to examine content moderation policies when he took control of Twitter last week.