Since last Saturday, April 1, Twitter has begun to remove the verified symbol from those users who do not pay their Twitter Blue subscription, including celebrities, journalists and other public figures and several of the companies and organizations with the most followers on the platform. microblogging.
This has plunged the social network into great chaos, as it is increasingly difficult to distinguish those real or official accounts of organizations from others that seek parody or that directly contribute to disinformation.
From now on, all those people who want to get the blue tick must pay 8 dollars a month, or 11 if it is done from an iPhone device, since the Apple application store takes a commission of 30% for the purchases that are made. They are carried out within the applications they host and Twitter plans to charge this commission to users.
In the case of companies, being verified is even more expensive. As an organization, the Twitter Blue service costs more than $1,000 a month (about 920 euros). Twitter Blue subscribers enjoy benefits like increased exposure for their posts, being able to edit their tweets, posting higher quality videos, a reading mode, and changing their name on Twitter and choosing to display their name or profile picture. But many are not willing to pay for what until now was free.
Elon Musk himself has had to pay for the subscription to Twitter Blue in the last hours, since he had not done so until now:
The number of users who have announced their opposition to the payment system has increased exponentially in the last few hours. Many verified users, such as basketball player LeBron James, have joined the boycott initiated by organizations such as the White House or The New York Times, which have announced that they do not intend to jump through hoops to maintain their status on the social network.
The number of users who have announced their opposition to the payment system has increased exponentially in the last few hours. Many verified users, such as basketball player LeBron James, have joined the boycott initiated by organizations such as the White House or The New York Times, which have announced that they do not intend to jump through hoops to maintain their status on the social network.
Other US media such as the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Politico and Vox have also announced that they will not pay for Twitter Blue because they consider that it would be an advertising expense, not associated with credibility. Despite these measures of pressure, Twitter has not trembled: the main account of the New York Times newspaper has already lost its verification.
In this context of widespread disenchantment, there is a group of Twitter users who, despite maintaining the ‘blue tick’ that they already had before the arrival of Twitter Blue, do not enjoy its advantages. This is the case of users like the actor and comedian David Pareja, who has shared a post on his own account in which he explains his case.
In the next few hours or days it will be possible to confirm if these are specific errors or if Twitter simply has not yet had enough time to remove the ‘blue ticks’ from all those users who had it, but have decided not to pay.
