The new CEO of Twitter Elon Musk announces that Twitter will charge $8 monthly to Twitter users who want a blue tick by their name, indicating a verified account.
The billionaire entrepreneur tweeted “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” in reference to the platform’s famous blue checkmark, saying the new plan would create a new revenue stream for the site.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
A blue tick symbol next to a username – normally for high-profile figures – is currently free, and many fear that this move could make it harder to identify reliable sources. The former Twitter Head of Global Policy Communications, warned that introducing a fee for blue ticks could make it harder to spot disinformation. “With disinformation as an issue that a lot of platforms are struggling with, verification is one of the ways that journalists, academic researchers and some users use to filter out disinformation or low quality information,” he shared in an interview with BBC.
