Only days after closing his $44billion Twitter deal, Elon Musk may be making some immediate changes to one of the apps’ most unique features; the verification badge. In response to a users query about getting denied verification, Musk said “the whole verification process is being revamped right now!”
Musk’s response, though not detailed, has sparked reactions from Twitter users, and the Verge reports that the Tesla CEO wants to add verification renewal as a feature to Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service which costs $4.99/month. Twitter Blue gives users access to ad-free articles, longer post characters, a different home screen from non Blue subscribers and other future additions.
While he has hinted on some form of payment by users in the past, Musk’s plan is to make Twitter Blue more expensive by adding verification as one of the features you get for subscribing. If the reports are true, Twitter Blue will cost $19.99/month for both new and existing subscribers and people who are already verified on Twitter would also have to pay the fee to retain their blue tick every month.
If the verification feature on Twitter Blue sees the light of day, already verified users have 90 days to subscribe to Blue before the tick is yanked off their profiles. There are also reports that Musk expects his engineers to make this feature available by November 7th, 2022. Of which, failure to launch could result in lay-offs.
While Musk may be desperate to make revenue for Twitter via this model, there are concerns that it is counter-intuitive and counter-productive. In the build up to finally buying off Twitter, Musk had complained there were more bots on the app than actual users. Twitter may or may not have used verification badges to identify real users who had (the potential of having) multiple handles impersonating them or just being bots.
Slapping a price tag on the verification badge may give power to fake accounts and impersonators if no proper checks are made except payment for a subscription. Musk in fact teased people for asking him if Trump would return to the app. At the moment, Twitter’s guidelines for getting a blue tick are that the accounts are authentic, notable and active.
Twitter’s verified page has kept mum about Musk’s statement and no edits have been made to its help centre yet.