Twitter will soon do away with remaining legacy verified checkmarks
Only paying subscribers of Twitter Blue or the business-centric Twitter Verified Organizations plan will be able to hold onto their badges
Aux News Twitter
“I’ll get you, my pretties, and your little legacy check mark too!” — Elon Musk, probably. Twitter announced yesterday that it’s officially doing away with any verified badges from the pre-Musk era. Starting April 1, only users and organizations who have subscribed to Twitter Blue or the Twitter Verified Organizations plan will be able to maintain verified status.
Naturally, the announcement arrived via a Thursday evening tweet from Twitter Verified, which directed users toward the applications for Twitter Blue and the Twitter Verified Organizations plan. Twitter Blue—which is now available worldwide—costs individual users $8 a month for web use and $11 per month via in-app payment on iOs or Android.
Twitter’s Verified Organizations plan is priced at $1,000 a month before tax, with each additional account affiliated with the subscription costing $50 a month before tax. That subscription will be the only way going forward for organizations to hold gold or grey checkmarks; gold is reserved for businesses, while grey denotes government accounts. (To all those bold users who made a verified Twitter account their central personality trait: we salute you, and recognize your sacrifice.)
Sound confusing and overcomplicated? It absolutely is. Since Musk closed a $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter last year, his chaotic, user-unfriendly rollout has been less than impressive. After initially launching (then shutting down amidst a deluge of fake accounts), Twitter Blue—and the overall verification system—proves a perfect microcosm of the problem Musk’s Twitter faces. Charging for previously free services, maximizing possibilities for disinformation to spread, and generally pissing off the very users who used to drive the site… it’s that special-recipe sauce that led Musk to be essentially voted off the Twitter CEO island back in December.
18 Comments
Please, if you’re reading this, for the love of God, delete your Twitter account.
I might sign up for one just to delete it.
I deleted mine when the news that Musk was taking over first broke, though to be honest it would have probably carried a lot more water if I’d actually ever used it for anything since 2011.
Musk continues to prove that he’s completely incompetent.
“Sound confusing and overcomplicated?
Um, no?
The gap between the A.V. Club comments and Twitter continues to grow. We’re winning the social media war, fellow commenters!
[Looks up from his gimmick account]I’m doing my part!
This really is just going back to the original plan that people already rejected because the entire point of the checkmarks is “this account is the real ____ not someone pretending to be them.”Like I can see some people/companies going along because they feel like they have to but not NEARLY enough to make this a winning proposition.
Tell you what, Twitterers – just send me 500 bucks and I’ll mail you a blue Sharpie! You can checkmark your whole life – cheap!
“user-unfriendly”*user-foely
No one needs Twitter, and absolutely no one needs to pay them $8 a month.
“Alexa, set reminder.”“What’s the reminder for?”“Check whether Elon has reversed this policy.”“When should I remind you?”“In twenty-four hours.”
Badges!? We don’t need no stinking badges!
Wait, so they’re even removing the check mark for government accounts if you don’t pay them $1000/month? Has he seen most government communications budgets?
Stuff like spreading misinformation or Trump having an account or whatever – those things were never going to actually sink Twitter. Charging people for something that used to be free? Now THAT will kill you off quickly. Musk is in a bind now – if Twitter Blue really does give verified users important boosts (like making their tweets more visible, etc) then people are going to flee the site quickly rather than pay. If Twitter Blue DOESN’T carry any meaningful boosts other than the blue check itself, then nobody’s going to care and they won’t pay for it.
It’s hilarious that Musk seems to have no idea that his users — ESPECIALLY the notable ones — need Twitter way less than Twitter desperately needs them. The users are the product that Twitter sells to advertisers. Charging the celebs, for example, who are driving eyeballs to his site is an asinine way to shoot himself in the foot. It’s not that they can’t afford it — it’s that they shouldn’t have to and didn’t, when their business model was right side-up.
How’s Mastodon working out for everyone? Thought ya’ll was supposed to be moving over there. It’s almost like you quietly changed your minds or something.
FYI:
The dudebra (account: dudebra-parody-account) imposter account
posting here in this thread is NOT the long-established
account user known in the Giz family.
The
shriveled-soul imposter has several accounts being used
to harass Kinja users, by posting sexist, racist and other
vileness here , but primarily on The Root and on Jezebel,
trying to discredit the actual, long-established account users.