Twitter Blue is Still Live, but Do We Care? When Musk, Vine, and TikTok Disregard the Decay of Twitter as a Social Lobby
People all over the world can now pay for Twitter, as the company has announced that its Twitter Blue subscription service is now available globally. While the subscription has been pretty widely available before (you could sign up for it in almost 50 countries), the expanded availability reflects the company’s drive to make Twitter Blue an increasingly important part of the service.
The decision to delay the rollout comes as the entire decision to charge users for verification has faced wide public backlash. In a display of defiance, some celebrities on the platform posed as Musk over the weekend and revealed a potential flaw in the “Blue Check” system.
Musk has moved quickly to shake up Twitter, including by firing its top execs. In tweets over the weekend, Musk polled his followers about whether to bring back Vine, Twitter’s defunct short-form video service, and said “absolutely” in response to a user’s suggestion to rethink the platform’s character limits. It is not known how committed Musk is to these changes.
It was designed to make sure users can determine which accounts are genuine and which aren’t by displaying a blue check mark. It would make it harder to distinguish whether a person is a bot or not if Musk created a paid barrier for verification.
Musk made the prevalence of fake and anti-spam accounts on the micro-blogging site central to his effort to leave the deal, before reversing himself later in the month.
There is a lot to unpack. First, the announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise. Since November, when he was elected CEO, Musk has said that he would remove the blue check marks from the service in the coming months. According to Musk, those verification badges were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” manner (though they are in fact quite useful for letting users confirm that the celebrities they’re interacting with are indeed the real person).
The blue check system did not cure fraud, lies, or misinformation, but it did help the platform operate in a way that has been problematic in the past. The reason why Facebook and TikTok cribbed from each other is because they own their own networks. They have been at least moderately helpful.
The new feature that would allow people with a monthly fee to receive a blue checkmark on their profiles was pushed back after the platform launched a new version of its app that promised to do just that.
Sarah Silverman’s Twitter Account Trolled by a Republican Candidate: Warnings about the Status of Twitter and an Alternative to Pelosi
Sarah Silverman trolled Musk with her account, copying his picture, name and cover image. The only thing distinguishing a tweet coming Silverman’s account was the @SarahKSilverman handle.
I think there is a right to free speech. and I eat doody for breakfast every day,” Silverman tweeted Saturday. Her account has retweeted posts endorsing Democratic candidates.
Silverman’s account was labeled as “temporarily restricted” Sunday, with a warning that “there has been some unusual activity from this account” shown to visitors before clicking through to the profile. She changed her account back to its usual form, complete with her name and image.
The blue checkmark that indicates your identity has been verified by the CEO of the account that she changed her name to. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you. That no longer applies. Good luck out there!” She then told her follower that she could buy a blue check mark for $8 a month without verification.
After changing her profile name to Musk, she supported a number of Democratic candidates and took to the social media platform to do so.
In addition, Musk said that users will no longer be warned before being suspended. He promised that this would be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue.
In the past few months, Musk has shared conspiracy theories about the attack on Paul Pelosi, called the Democrats the party of division and hate and warned that the woke mind virus will destroy civilization.
The new Twitter Blue: advertising where you can get your ad dollars, but how much will you have to pay? Comment on Musk’s row with Apple
The company says the revamped service will cost $8 a month on the web, or $11 a month if purchased through an app on iPhones and iPads, where in-app transactions are processed through the company’s App Store, which generally levies a 30% commission.
Musk lashed out at Apple over its so-called “Apple tax”, a long-term pain point for app developers and cause of concern for regulators around the world who have viewed the fee as excessive and damaging to Apple’s rivals. Musk has since claimed his row with Apple was resolved following a meeting with the company’s chief executive, Tim Cook at the company’s Cupertino headquarters.
It will be gold for companies, grey for governments and a blue check for prominent individuals, including celebrities, according to Musk.
The company says subscribers to the new Twitter Blue will also eventually have their tweets prioritized at the top of replies, mentions and search; see half the number of ads; and be able to post longer videos.
Even before Musk took over, the company’s advertising business was not up to par, as they have struggled to grow their service in the way other competitors have.
Twitter has not answered questions about whether it still has the resources to take on such a daunting task after laying off more than half of the company’s staff.
The CEO of SocialProof Security, Rachel Tobac, toldNPR that she was unsure if it was possible to prevent fraud with a reduced workforce. “SCAMmers will quickly determine how they can overwhelm or manipulate the identity verification system to get ‘authenticated’ as an entity that they are not.”
Twitter Blue, Google Play, or Google Play: Signing Up for a New Feature That’s Not So Popular Before Musk Takes Over
Before you sign up for Twitter Blue, you need to verify the phone number connected to your account and check to see if your account is eligible. Twitter Blue costs $11 per month if you sign up through the iOS store on your iPhone (you can’t subscribe through Google Play on Android yet) or $8 per month if you subscribe through a web browser. This price difference is not unheard of for Apple’s App Store; YouTube Music does a similar price hike for iOS originated subscriptions.
Some Twitter users have started to see a new explanatory note when they click on the blue checks of accounts that were verified before Musk’s takeover that reads: “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”
The new system was supposed to be reintroduced at the end of November, but was delayed several times due to concerns about the safety of the feature.
The verification categories of gold and gray are intended to address some of the concerns but aren’t clear on what a requirement for individual users to pay to be verified will mean.
Musk said last month that the boundary of what is considered notable is too subjective and that verified humans will have the same blue check. “Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org.”
Not sure what exactly you receive for that monthly subscription? Are you not sure what all the different colored check marks mean? Everything you need to know is here.
Twitter Blue: How to Identify Me and My Favorite Tweets in the Presence of Changes and Misdemeanors
OK, but what do you get right now? You are able to change yourtweet multiple times within the first half hour of posting, a long requested feature. While you will need to wait for the longer videos to come, you can put in video files at a high quality. Do you still hold on to the bored ape, crazy kitty, or whatever the latest NFT collection is? Show it off as your profile picture with Twitter Blue.
The upgraded service allows you to make aesthetic adjustments to your experience. Change the appearance of the icon on your smartphone or tweak the in-app colors. It’s now possible to sort through all of the posts you’ve bookmarks and organize them into private folders.
Some accounts with gold or gray check marks may be seen by users. The gold is supposed to be used for an official account from a business and the gray is for government accounts.
After everything, are you ever still sure you want to be on Twitter? If you want something new, there are many alternatives that you can consider, with WIRED articles helping you get started on Mastodon, discover new server on Discord, or give LinkedIn a second chance.
Does Musk Really Plan a Priority Ranking Strategy for 2019? When Twitter and Facebook Announced February 27th are Open, but Musk Hasn’t
CEO and owner Elon Musk has been promising prioritized ranking since November, calling the feature “essential to defeat spam/scam.” However, despite (or maybe because of) Musk’s push to make employees work in “hardcore” conditions, it hasn’t materialized. In February, he promised to open source the company’s app on the week of February 27th, but it hasn’t begun yet, and he hasn’t started sharing ad revenue with Blue subscribers. He says that it will take place on March 31st.
The company also announced on Thursday that it’s started accepting applications from governmental and organizational accounts that want a grey checkmark. Its documentation says accounts that are eligible for it include heads of state, members of congresses or parliaments, headquarters-level, regional-level, and country-level institutional accounts. (For example, the National Park Service has a grey check, as does the US president.)
The future of the service that hasn’t been kept is one of the things that Musk has made promises about. For example, Musk announced a revenue sharing program in February, and his tweets are still the only thing we’ve heard about it. Multiple recipients of the program have told The Verge they don’t know anything about it. Musk missed his first self-imposed deadline to open source the code used to recommend a social media post.
It’s also possible that Twitter actually does intend to do this, and the date was just chosen as a troll, the way Musk likes to work 69 and 420 into almost everything he does. Also, it just added a huge banner advertising the change at the top of one verified Verge reporter’s timeline, so maybe it’s really going to happen.
He kept his promise and sent a press email with a poop message, which we requested for the story.