Elon Musk has fulfilled his promise that Twitter would “treat everyone equally” and has removed the blue verification mark from all the profiles of this social network that had inherited it from the stage before Musk bought it. Anyone who hasn’t subscribed to Twitter Blue, the premium version at $8 a month, has missed out, as April 20 was the deadline.
Twitter Blue offers its subscribers more visibility for their content, fewer ads and other benefits, such as the ability to write longer messages of up to 10,000 characters, upload longer and higher quality videos, as well as being able to edit messages up to five times during 30 minutes.
Until March, only 0.2% of users paid for the subscription, but also in the last month alone Twitter Blue received 116,000 subscriptions, 138% more than in February.
Users were notified by email of their demotion, and among the victims are personalities such as Pope Francis, Beyoncé and Donald Trump. As a curiosity, Musk has explained that he pays for the subscription of actor William Shatner, NBA player Lebron James and writer Stephen King out of his own pocket. The latter two had announced their intention not to subscribe, and James expressed his surprise yesterday morning that his profile still retained the verification mark.
This mark was one of the methods by which Twitter exercised content moderation, as it ensured that the profile really corresponded to who it said it was and, therefore, prevented impersonation within the social network.
In this sense, and following the complaints of many users, Musk announced his commitment to continue the fight against bots and the creation of a “moderation council”.
But this was not the only surprise that Twitter users encountered yesterday. It was not announced, but the companies that have not gone through the cash register, have not only seen how the sign that verified their identity disappeared, but – as Musk explained – from now on to be able to recover it and run advertising campaigns they will have to pay the $8 or invest in Twitter advertising at a rate of at least $1,000 per month.
And there is still more. Following complaints from some public media – such as the BBC – that a message appeared on their profiles that labeled them as media funded by a government and that this could affect their credibility, Twitter has withdrawn it. This has triggered more criticism, since from now on it will also not be possible to know when a medium from Russia or China – considered usual sources of fake news – is being paid for with public money.
But all this has ended up having a price – above $8, of course – for Elon Musk himself. After the controversy on Twitter, the drop in Tesla shares on the stock market, due to the car manufacturer’s poor results and the mid-flight explosion on Thursday of the Starship rocket – manufactured by its aerospace company, SpaceX – , after five of his thirty-three engines failed, the South African millionaire has ceased to be the richest person in the world, a position that has been regained by the French Bernard Arnault, the owner of the Louis Vuitton empire.
