Elon Musk rebuilds Twitter under paid subscribers

Those for whom the social network is still free will be left without blue checkmarks, places in the tape of recommendations and voting rights

Ilon Musk, who leads the company for almost six months, is looking for a might and main how to monetize the platform, and now finally changes the meaning of the verification of accounts. If earlier the blue checkmark helped in the fight against misinformation, now it is now given only to, it is ready to pay monthly a mask from eight dollars to a thousand (and even more). "Medusa" tells how the social network will change and why more and more users oppose the innovations.

Changes on Twitter under Ilon Masca are associated with three mechanisms that appeared before he bought the company, and were not initially connected with each other. The new owner of the social network changed the principle of verification of accounts, relied on paid subscribers and changed the work of the advisory tape.

The blue checkpoint of verification appeared on Twitter back in 2009. She was introduced to confirm the identity of the account owner and protect celebrities from the influx of fake accounts. Four years later, organizations, such as the media, were able to receive a checkmark. Verification from the very beginning was free, and those who wanted were required to submit an application and wait for the moderators to decide. This process seemed opaque - in his opinion, the system with the free issuance of ticks by celebrities, journalists and other public figures discredited itself.

The response to this was the verification for money - as part of the Twitter Blue subscription. Twitter began testing Twitter Blue back in 2021, long before the mask arrived, but with the new owner, in November 2022, it was restarted and added the opportunity to get a checkmark for money - and now not for 4.99, but for 7.99 dollars a month. At the end of March 2023, Twitter Blue became available around the world. At the same time, Musk came up with how to increase the number of paid subscribers.

Since April 15, Twitter will not be able to read as before. Only those who pay for subscription will promote

Musk wrote about plans to completely get rid of the old verification system in December 2022. In parallel, the new owner of Twitter experimented several times with an algorithmic tape (although this was not the case) and as a result announced that from April 15, 2023, only verified accounts will appear in it.

Also, from this date, users without subscription cannot be participated in the votes. Mask, who has repeatedly made decisions based on the results of polls on the social network, explained this with the struggle with bots based on artificial intelligence.

The innovation means that the tweets of most users of the social network - those who do not have a blue checkmark - will be visible only in another, chronological tape, where all the posts of authors from your subscriptions go in order.

Twitter has already begun to take off checkmarks from those who do not pay

At the end of March, Twitter stated that from April 1, he would begin to pick up checkboxes from accounts without paid subscription or its corporate version. The latter is intended for organizations and government organizations - and costs a thousand dollars a month, not counting taxes and $ 50 for each additional account related to the brand. At the same time, the tick is given not blue, but gold.

So far, Musk has not begun to massively select blue ticks, but one of the largest verified accounts - the New York Times with 55 million subscribers - has already lost verification. This happened after the newspaper openly stated that she was not going to pay for Twitter Blue and call for the design of the subscription of her journalists.

After that, Musk compared the contents of the Nyt Twitter-Nyt Twitter, called it “unreadable”, and also accused her of hypocrisy due to the fact that the publication promotes its own paid subscription for materials. And that the billionaire takes away the verification from the publication, he wrote in response to the meme of one of the users:

Although the main account of The New York Times now does not have verification, some have been affected by the publication of accounts, for example, about books and food , blue ticks have not yet taken away - at least at the time of publication of this material. And the account of the newspaper about traveling in general still has a gold checkbox of verification - like the true page of the organization.

In the meantime - in the transition period - it is impossible to find out how the user has a blue check

Almost the entire period of Twitter under the leadership of the mask - from November 2022 to April 2023 - users could have a blue checkbox for two reasons. Or if the owner of the account received it according to the old rules (now it is impossible), or if he purchased a subscription and went through a moderator check.

For what exactly the user received a checkmark, it was easy to find out by clicking on it. The special window indicated one of two possible explanations:

• “The account was verified earlier based on the old criteria ” (this is a Legacy Verife Acccount. It may or not be notable);
• “The account has an active Twitter Blue subscription, and it meets the new criteria for social networks” (This Account Is Verified Because Itʼs Subscribed to Twitter Blue).

In early April, Twitter users noticed that the notification of the meaning of the blue tick has changed - now the text is the same for all its owners and looks like this: it looks like this:

This account is verified because its author is signed on Twitter Blue or tested on the basis of old criteria (This Account Is Verified Itʼs Subscript to Twitter Blue or IS a LEGACY VERIFied).

More and more users are protested against the decision of the mask - and they are not going to pay it

If the user does not pay for Twitter Blue, then from April 15 his tweets - even if they are popular and fall under the interests of other users - will not be recommended to those who are not signed for it.

In fact, this makes a paid subscription necessary for influensers and any other microblogers who want to advance work or creativity.

In response, many of those who now own a tick said they were not going to pay for it. For example, the ICE SPICE rap artist with 1.2 million subscribers noted that she does not need to be verified, since the fake account is not able to gain the same amount. However, not all users check the profile of the author of tweet before baking it or repost.

Here area few more examples of discontent - from the most highly paid basketball player in the world of Lebron James, the former employee of the White House, Monica Levinsky and actor Jason Alexander, known for the series “Sinfeld”.

"Jellyfish"