Twitter is delaying the rollout of its updated Blue subscription with verification until after the US midterm elections, The New York Times reports. The publication claims that it had gained this information from an internal memo shared by a manager from the social media company, who stated that the launch will instead happen on 9 November 2022.
Just in case you missed it, Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk previously announced a major change to the platform’s Twitter Blue premium service, where subscribers are entitled to receive the much desired “Checkmark” verification badge without fulfilling any prerequisites. The billionaire initially planned to increase the service’s price from US$ 2.99 (~RM 14) to US $19.99 (~RM 95) in an effort to limit its privileges to those who are willing to pay.
However, this move was met with backlash by existing verified users on Twitter including renowned author Stephen King, which resulted in Musk to change the approach. Still hellbent on making the verification badge a major selling point for the premium service, the new owner then announced on 2 November that Twitter Blue subscription fees will instead be revised to US$ 8 (~RM 37.35). The major update was expected to happen on 7 November, with reports claiming that Musk threatened employees to make the change by then or risk termination.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Neither the internal memo nor The New York Times specified the reason for the delay, apart from mentioning the upcoming US midterm elections. However, it is very likely that the move is intended to prevent potential imposters from abusing the Blue checkmark to mislead users with bogus information which, ironically, is an issue Twitter has been determined to impede through its existing restrictions and limited distribution of the verified user status.
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
And on the subject of impersonation, Musk today announced that Twitter will permanently suspend any imitators that do not label themselves as “parody” accounts. “Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning,” he added. Changing user names while subscribed to Twitter Blue, on the other hand, will cause a temporary loss of the verified checkmark.
Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2022
Besides that, Musk also threw in a couple more promises, including the ability to attach long-form text to tweets and creator monetisation for all forms of content. The former is intended to allow Twitter users to post statements and notes rather than sharing text screenshots as part of their tweets, while the latter is still pretty vague at this point. He did not say when these changes are expected to be applied on the platform. Oh, it’s worth mentioning that Musk has now changed his Twitter bio description from “Chief Twit” to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.”
(Source: The New York Times)
