Elon Musk Re Launches the review backed Twitter Blue Verified Subscription service
Elon Musk relaunches the review-supported Twitter Blue Verified Subscription Service following the controversy involving fraudulent accounts.
Elon Musk’s Twitter subscription service was relaunched on Monday after a catastrophic debut attempt that featured a startling number of phoney accounts that frightened advertisers and prompted doubts about the site’s survival.
The first effort was made last month, only ten days after Musk paid $44 billion for the platform and launched a wave of mass layoffs that saw the company’s workforce cut in half, including teams of workers in charge of content moderation.
The return of Twitter Blue is timed with the owner of Tesla and SpaceX publicly supporting more right-wing causes, such as opposing the use of gender-neutral pronouns and the US government’s COVID-19 reaction.
Twitter Blue caused a stir when it originally debuted because so many fake accounts that purported to be from companies or famous people started to surface. As a result, Musk’s team was forced to scrap the concept.
This time, the company improved its verification procedure by including a requirement for a Twitter evaluation in order to receive the coveted blue badge. Twitter now only permits organisations and well-known people to use the blue checkmark that denotes their accounts have been verified, in order to avoid impersonation and incorrect information.
The relaunch came as word spread that Twitter CEO Elon Musk had dissolved the Trust and Safety Council. In order to build strategies for tackling delicate topics including hate speech, child safety, civil rights, and other challenges, the firm consulted with experts from all over the world through the council, which was established six years ago.
Using copies of the email as evidence, The Washington Post and CNN reported that Twitter is reevaluating how it incorporates “external inputs” into its work and has decided that the council is “not the ideal structure to do this.”
Some Trust and Safety Council members had previously resigned in protest, arguing that Musk’s direction had compromised the security of Twitter users.
Since taking over, content filtering has become a major worry for Musk, who has vowed to let users tweet whatever they choose, as long as it is legal. Musk has stated that he is a staunch supporter of the right to free expression.
The billionaire’s ardent support for unfettered speech has alarmed major advertisers, which has drawn the attention of regulators. Because of their strong left-wing and pro-LGBTQ leaning, Musk believes that Twitter’s previous owners improperly banned accounts, including those of former US President Donald Trump.
On Sunday, he criticised Anthony Fauci, who is leaving his position as the primary advisor for the US response to the COVID-19 outbreak and is frequently the subject of vitriol in right-wing media.
Musk mockingly remarked, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” in reference to the rising practice of people announcing their preferred gender pronouns.
In response to Musk’s comments, a popular tweet by Monday night urged people to change their pronouns to Boycott/Tesla. The White House harshly criticised Musk’s anti-Fauci tweets, calling them “disgusting” and “divorced from reality.”
According to White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, personal attacks like the ones we’re currently witnessing are exceedingly hazardous. Following unjustified attacks on the social media site that Musk had championed, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety departed his home.
After Musk disclosed internal documents that support unverified suspicions of cooperation between some Twitter employees and the Democratic Party, threats were made against Yoel Roth, who left the company in November.
The attacks intensified when Musk endorsed a tweet that claimed Roth backed paedophilia, a common allegation made by conspiracy theorists to target rivals.
The politically liberal San Francisco, where Twitter is headquartered, seemed to be criticising the South African entrepreneur for adhering to right-wing talking points more and more. Musk was vehemently booed by a crowd in the city after being introduced on stage by comedian Dave Chappelle late Sunday.
“It’s almost as if I’ve insulted San Francisco’s mad leftists… but nahhh,” Musk wrote in a tweet following the event. According to Carolina Milanesi, a tech analyst with Creative Strategies, Musk’s political stance on Twitter could eventually cause issues for the company.
All users who purchase the Twitter Blue plan must complete this process, the company has confirmed on its FAQ page.
Additionally, Twitter has said that users who have changed their username (handle), display name, or profile picture within the previous seven days would not be eligible to purchase the Twitter Blue subscription.
The company claims that those whose accounts haven’t been active in the last 30 days or whose profiles have altered in the last seven days may also experience difficulties signing up.
Even if a user passes the aforementioned conditions for the Blue checkmark, Twitter will still verify the account to make sure it satisfies its verification requirements before displaying the Blue checkmark. To ensure that their account doesn’t contain any deceptive, dishonest, spam, or manipulative content, one must make sure that their application for a Twitter Blue subscription meets the platform’s requirements.
Twitter Blue’s FAQ website states that all other features, excluding the blue checkmark, would be immediately available to users. All of these precautions are being taken because Elon Musk’s major goal in taking over the company was to prevent impersonation and spam on the platform.
If anyone is not aware, Twitter Blue is a free subscription service that gives users early or premium access to some services, including the Edit Tweet button. It also adds a blue checkmark to their accounts. Top Articles, Reader, Custom Navigation, Custom App Icons, Themes, Bookmark Folders, and Undo Tweets are other features of this service.
