Elon Musk, who became the owner of Twitter, will soon make the first significant changes. Now people who previously could not get the blue checkmark as privileged accounts will get access to it for about $8 per month.

The Twitter account verification system that existed before was quite imperfect, and many people could not get a blue checkmark for years. While content creators, citizen journalists, influencers, and other important people and organizations have not been verified by Twitter without explanation, hundreds of scam accounts that spread fraudulent information have had no problem with this. In parallel with this, some verified accounts belonging to politicians, companies, executives, journalists, and others, have more power, and also considered themselves significantly better than other users, because their status was underlined by the blue checkmark.

However, Twitter's current “lords & peasants system” is “bullshit,” said Twitter's new director and owner, Elon Musk. He said the platform wants to give power to the people, and the blue checkmark will soon be available for an $8/month subscription. Musk also clarified that the price will be adjusted by country in proportion to purchasing power parity.

Price adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022

This way, all real Twitter users who want can get a blue checkmark for a small monthly fee. This step is also aimed at clearing the platform of bots and scam accounts. According to Musk, verified accounts will receive “priority in replies, mentions & search.” In fact, after some time, the point of creating bot/spam accounts will be lost, so unverified accounts will not receive impressions and no one will interact with them. At the same time, if a verified account engages in spam/scam, that account will be suspended. Thus, the problem of a huge number of bots on Twitter will be gradually solved.

Yes, this will destroy the bots. If a paid Blue account engages in spam/scam, that account will be suspended.

Essentially, this raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022

Musk also said that Twitter will reward content creators, which will be made possible by the revenue stream from blue checkmark fees. He noted that this is “absolutely essential” as “creators need to make a living!” This was great news for accounts that have long been involved in this activity, but previously could not even count on the monetization of their work on Twitter by the platform.

Absolutely essential. Creators need to make a living!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022

Musk said that in addition to prioritizing in replies, mentions and search verified accounts will be able to “post long video & audio,” see “half as many ads” as other users, and that there will be “paywall bypass for publishers willing to work with us.”

According to the new changes, under the name of public figures, there will be a secondary tag, such as for politicians. This will make it clear to Twitter users who own the account and make it unique, preventing copycats or scammers from scamming users of the platform.

© 2022, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.

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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts; follow him on Twitter

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