The new owner of Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk said that his plan to charge users $8 a month in exchange for a blue verification mark may not be the best idea but they’ll see, stressing that the company should take risks.
There are no sacred cows in product at Twitter anymore. Elon is willing to try lots of things — many will fail, some will succeed. The goal is to find the right mix of successful changes to ensure the long-term health and growth of the business. https://t.co/cMf27EmmpJ
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 9, 2022
On Wednesday, November 9, Musk spoke with advertisers on Twitter and reiterated his disapproval of the site’s current structure. He described how users are divided into two groups – those with a blue tick and those without – as “nonsense,” saying that the decision should be up to the people.
Musk stated that the United States was trying to get rid of things and this is how I feel about it philosophically.
In a tweet from November 1, Musk said that the “peasants and lords” system currently seen on Twitter would be changed with a Blue subscription, where those who pay $8 monthly would receive a blue checkmark.
Twitter will do a lot of stupid things
Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022
We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
On Wednesday, Elon Musk tweeted that “Twitter is going to do a lot of stupid things in the coming months.”
Musk wants his company to take risks and improve in big ways, as long as they are able to correct their mistakes quickly. “We are not stupid in our ambition,” Musk stated emotionally. The key is being “very agile”, he said passionately.
He was joined by Robin Wheeler, who is in charge of Twitter’s global advertising sales team, and Will Roth, the head of trust and safety at City Hall of Advertisers.
Musk stated that it is both “important” and “necessary” to pay the $8 fee for a verified account on Twitter in order to despute with the millions of bots and trolls, including those from government agencies.
Anti-fake accounts
He continued on to say that it’s inexpensive to create a fake Twitter account, which are “hundreds of millions” made every year. $8 per month may not seem like much, but when multiplied by however many bots there are, the cost begins to add up.
Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2022
This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue.
“It’s not only about the money,” he said, “because then you might argue, ‘Well, couldn’t a government representative get paid $8 million to create a million false accounts?’ And yes, they would have the budget for that.”
The problem, as Musk clarified, is that the government representative doesn’t have enough credit cards or phones.
Musk stated that the platform would “aggressively” pursue impersonation and deception on Twitter, and suspend accounts “at least temporarily” for impersonation or deceit.
