Twitter continues to generate news and although most of it does not look good for the social network, who knows if all this welter of dimes and directresses that we continually echo in the press, is part of Elon Musk’s strategy to keep the news in the limelight. conversation about the platform. Although, on the other hand, it was predictable: the type 44,000 million was not spent to leave everything as it was.
Regarding the verified ones, that symbol that accompanies many users with many followers and that in theory gives them a higher status, generally, because they are more or less relevant personalities; that symbol that has generated so much debate in recent days due to the plans exposed by Musk around it… Everything seems to come to fruition, or predispose to do so.
Summarizing the story, Musk hinted that this symbol was a kind of class seal that only some users could access… and the truth is that it has been that way for a long time. Without going any further, Twitter paralyzed the provision of verifications for a long time due to the number of people who demanded them and the problems in assigning them correctly, that is, verifying that, in fact, the owner of one of these symbols is who says be.
So appreciated were the verifications that, as Musk has acknowledged, there were Twitter employees who sold them on their ownwhile refusing to grant them to certain types of users, for example those with a relevant profile related to the American political right.
yup
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2022
Total, that Musk promised to make a clean slate and make the verified ones available to all users who are willing to pay 8 dollars a montha subscription that has begun to be called Twitter Blue and that has other advantages, like a ‘premium’ service mode: the possibility of publishing longer audio and video, priority in responses, mentions and searches and seeing half of the advertising stream.
In other words, Musk’s idea was to turn verified users into a premium mode of Twitter that he did not like, because being verified makes sense and because many of the users who are verified are well-known personalities in their respective fields that they are not going to pay because they are recognized for what they already are. The fear also arose that verified profiles would begin to swarm the platform pretending to be someone they are not.
The matter is complicated, because on Twitter there are many verified users who are behind a pseudonym – that is, they are not “real” anyone – and, from what has been told, the purpose of this new verification proposed by Musk had with the sole objective of making cash, devaluing the model for those who pay the $8 monthly subscription, even if other advantages are included.
But finally it seems that it is not going to be like that, that common sense has prevailed and that one thing will be Twitter Blue, with its verification symbols that actually mean that it is a premium user, and the traditional verified ones will be kept, or at least a variation of these for public personalities who require it.
The new Twitter Blue does not include ID verification – it’s an opt-in, paid subscription that offers a blue checkmark and access to select features. We’ll continue to experiment with ways to differentiate between account types.
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 8, 2022
And the issue was not so difficult: that they give the verification symbol to those who, due to their public relevance, deserve it and that it be verified that they are who they say they are, whether it is a person or an organization. And then, Twitter Blue for those who want it, with the possibility of verification, but only as a complement. We will have to see how they do it, but that is the idea now.
It is noted, however, that not all currently verified accounts will remain verifiedand although it is expected that those of people or organizations susceptible to impersonation will do so, it remains to be seen where Twitter will put the barrier, whether in the number of followers, in the nature of the account or other data will be taken into consideration .
