Twitter CEO Elon Musk is putting his employees to work with their first major task of introducing a $20 per month subscription to blue checkmark accounts to keep their verification.
Musk wants developers to alter Twitter Blue, the company’s $4.99 per month subscription program, into a more expensive subscription that verifies users.
Verified users have just 90 days to subscribe to the program or lose their blue checkmark.
Employees must meet a deadline of November 7 to launch the features or join the unemployment queue, The Verge reports.
Musk said earlier he planned to change how Twitter verifies accounts and handles bot accounts.
Musk tweeted on Sunday: “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
Breitbart noted the dubious aspects of its verification system:
Twitter admitted it added its verification checkmark, meant to ensure the public that an account is authentic, to a number of fake accounts run by bots. The platform’s shoddy verifications follow the blacklisting of high-profile conservatives such as James O’Keefe, who before his banning was refused verification by the platform despite a constant flow of fake accounts mimicking him to confuse the public.
A Twitter spokesperson said at the time:
“We mistakenly approved the verification applications of a small number of inauthentic (fake) accounts. We have now permanently suspended the accounts in question, and removed their verified badge under our platform manipulation and spam policy.”
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Twitter has been caught in the past accidentally verifying random bot accounts but unable to verify legitimate conservative figures.
As The Daily Fetched reported last week:
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter saw the billionaire take immediate steps to fire several top executives from the platform, sparking a spectacular meltdown from the left.
Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde, after he accused them of misleading him and investors over the number of bot accounts, Fox News reported.
Meanwhile, The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway described Musk’s immediate firings as “An excellent start.”
Saagar Enjeti, the co-host of Breaking Points, posted emoji hands waving “bye” while retweeting a post he wrote in April, stating, “Vijaya Gadde, the top censorship advocate at Twitter who famously gaslit the world on Joe Rogan’s podcast and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, is very upset about the @elonmusk takeover.”
Techdirt writer/editor Mike Masnick expressed support for Gadded, writing, “People do not realize how much @vijaya did for free speech. Twitter is less of a free speech platform without her.”
Uproxx writer Mike Redmond wrote, “I don’t think any of us are prepared for how quickly this whole site is about to go down. It’s a miracle flames aren’t shooting out of it already.”
Good riddance to bad rubbish
Interesting… A real journalist just reported that the charge would be $$4.99!
To expensive for me.
Elon? G0 $2 bucks. If it turns out that isn’t feasible then raise it.
But hey, what do I know?