After several months of constant back and forward on whether or not Elon Musk will buy Twitter, the infamous millionaire is now the direct owner of Twitter. And as one of his first acts as owner of Twitter, Musk has recently announced that a monthly subscription fee will be charge to accounts who are verified. For now own, verified accounts will have to pay $8 a month to continue to have a blue check mark right next to their name on Twitter and keep their status of their accounts verified. Not only is this move beyond stupid, greedy, and manipulative, but it contradicts the entire point of a verified Twitter account in the first place.
Why did Twitter make verified accounts a thing in the first place?
Back in 2009, Twitter launched their own “verified accounts” program. After receiving numerous complaints from known celebrities such as Kayne West (who I pray is NOT in the running for president in two years) and being sued by longtime baseball manager Tony La Russa over unauthorized accounts by impersonators, verified accounts became a thing to counteract the accounts being created by trolls or impersonators. It’s very existence was to make sure all the “important” people out there on the website can show everyone else that the account they are running is in fact their legit account and not one made by a troll or a impersonator. That way, Twitter could address the criticisms of fake accounts and famous people who used Twitter can let their audience know of the tweets they put out on the account that is actually there’s. However, with this new subscription fee that Musk was implemented, the whole purpose of a blue check mark is now useless.
Not only do you know have to pay to keep your check mark next to your name on your account but that also means you have to pay to let all your followers know that the account you run is in fact yours and no one else’s. Wasn’t the entire point of a verified account was to cut down on the baiting spam and trolling with other accounts? Wasn’t it suppose to act as a solution for the site and avoid any future complaints and law suits on this exact matter? Why test your user by forcing them to pay up to 60 bucks a year to keep their name on their site clean and not allow others to impersonate them? Musk has always talked about freedom of speech as a big thing but in the case of Twitter, I guess speech on verified accounts will now cost you eight bucks a month.
You Can Now Make Your Twitter Account Verified By Just Paying A Subscription Fee
What makes matters even more complicated is that there will also be a new Twitter subscription titled, “Twitter Blue”, that will allow users to get verified without any hard effort or viewership needed. Yes, you read that right! If you pay eight bucks a month for Twitter Blue, then you are automatically able to get a blue check mark on your account just like that no matter what. I can’t recall a owner in recent memory that has actively missed a point of the thing they actually known and why it has been as successful as it has been before they took over, outside of a sports commissioner of course.
Not only is this the equivalent of paying Musk bottled air, this is basically opening the door for more spamming and trolling in the near future. Because if some loser decided that he is willing to fork over eight dollars a month and wants to make a parody account of someone famous, then they are able to be verified and can easily deceived and manipulate the audience of that famous person. Not only does it goes against what verified account stood for since the program got made but this will most likely lead to even more backlash and possibly even lawsuits against Twitter for impersonation accounts. I mean if I’m a troll, why not do just that? I now have the power and resource to do just that if I’m able to fork over a couple of dollar signs even if I only want to do it for one month. Not that I don’t think Musk and Twitter can’t afford to get sued for it but why even make that a possibility by making accounts verified all willy nilly without needing to do much except pay a monthly fee. You are just opening up Pandora’s box here.
Will Elon Musk destroy Twitter?
Back in April, I did a piece when it was confirmed that Elon Musk has bought Twitter and I claimed that despite inevitable changes to come, it won’t completely destroy the site. While I still stand by those claims as of right now, I do think this was a big change I was afraid we would get. Granted, I’m not verified on Twitter and don’t plan to be for the near future but this is only gonna alienate a certain group of the audience that been on the site for so long and only attract a certain other group filled with losers who have no lives and likes to troll because they have nothing better to do. Unless Musk makes a paid subscription permeant for all Twitter users in general, I think the site will remain the same and won’t be wrecked, at least until someone one else is able to make a Twitter copycat that’s successful. And even then, that will probably take a LONG ass time before that happens.
Nevertheless, I do not see this new verification subscription working well at all whatsoever. Hopefully, this will eventually go the way of say Google Plus, where a company trying to force fed a feature that nobody wants down our throats will backfire so badly that will just give up on it after a year or two. Even then at least when Google and YouTube did that, they weren’t forcing their audience to pay a subscription for it. Just yet another big greedy rich asshole move by a big greedy rich asshole.
I’ll still be on Twitter for now but who knows for how long if this subscription feature actually becomes a success? I sure can’t wait a year from now having to pay 20 dollars a month just to make a tweet about how much the Mario movie sucks. I would certainly make that a tweet made for 20 dollars a month.
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