There is not a day without an occurrence of Elon Musk, who announces all changes on Twitter through his personal account. The latest idea from the Twitter boss is to prioritize verified accounts with the blue mark on the timeline, which users can get by subscribing to Twitter Blue, the payment service with premium options. This in most cases, because the platform has re-verified the accounts of some users. Those that the social network has wanted. And without paying.
“Verified accounts now have priority,” the businessman tweeted on Tuesday, in a new change of criteria. Nothing new for the Twitter community, accustomed to this type of advertisement since the tycoon bought the social network last October for 44,000 million dollars.
It seems Musk is running out of ideas to get people to subscribe to Twitter Blue, because the service isn’t having much success. Just 0.2% of web users pay for Twitter Blue: In March, it had around 116,000 confirmed signups across the web, up 138% from the previous month, according to Similarweb.
Twitter continues to lurch with its new subscription. The company had already warned several months ago that it would “start to reduce” the blue checks granted under its old control system, which emphasized the protection of high-profile users.
Last week Musk announced the “end date to remove legacy blue checks”: April 20. Said and done. From that day on, the check marks on many profiles disappeared, because the users themselves warned that they would not pay for the new service.
But the tycoon has changed the rules at will. Last Sunday, three days after its launch, numerous Twitter accounts of personalities, companies and the media recovered the blue verification mark. But several posted messages about it, making it clear that they had not paid for Twitter Blue or given their phone and that, after losing the blue mark, it had reappeared without further explanation.
Twitter even placed the badge on the inactive accounts of several deceased celebrities, such as basketball player Kobe Bryant or chef and presenter Anthony Bourdain.
The mess with the check mark did not stop there. Musk confessed that he had personally started paying for Twitter Blue subscriptions to three celebrities: actor William Shatner, basketball player LeBron James and author Stephen King. Several of them had publicly expressed their refusal to pay the monthly fee.
Musk’s constant bickering and back-and-forth have not gone down well with Twitter. The social network has lost a good part of its advertisers. As reported by The Washington Post, advertising revenue has recently fallen by as much as 75%, complicating the company’s financial situation.
