Since the $44 billion Twitter deal was finalized, Elon Musk has been hard at work to revitalize the platform into a mission of ‘Twitter 2.0’. The turbulent process of the deal came to fruition when Musk started rampant and radical decisions to revamp the platform. To increase revenue, he added a subscription plan for ‘Twitter Blue’ at $7.99. To decrease the losses, he sacked more than half of his global employees at Twitter. He even reinstated and banned Trump and Kanye West’s accounts.
The trial and error model to reinvigorate one of the most used social media platforms has been borderline failing. The Tesla owner is still at it to repair the faults. When Musk introduced ‘Twitter Blue’, an upgraded version of the already existing verification system. He tweaked it by introducing a fee and left it open to anyone and everyone who can pay the fee. But, it proved to be a disaster when many impersonators of some important personalities inundated the platform. Now, on December 12th, 2022, he has reintroduced ‘Twitter Blue’, but he has ensured a major change to the already existing blue check verification.
Read More: Why Elon Musk Hiked The Price Of ‘Twitter Blue’ For iOS Users?
Elon Musk Thinks The Distribution Of Blue Checks Was ‘Corrupt’
It was in 2009 when Twitter experimented with what we now know as ‘Verified accounts’. The origin of these checks is similar to why Musk canceled the ‘Twitter Blue’—To get rid of impersonating accounts! Many celebrities and prominent personalities including Kanye West raised the complaint that there are many impersonating accounts emerging.
So, the company started a beta experiment for verified accounts. These badges blue checks helped the users to know the authenticity of an account and the information that the account is spreading. These were given to celebrities, business personalities, government officials, journalists, and others regardless of the follower count.
Now, Elon Musk has re-introduced the variant of these ‘blue checks’ renaming it as ‘Twitter Blue’. Now, any person who can pay the monthly fee of $8 can get ‘Twitter Blue’. This will help the users to get exclusive access to new features which include editing tweets, high-resolution videos, and the coveted ‘blue checkmark’. But, the billionaire has ensured that he will remove these ‘blue checks’ from these legacy accounts.
In a few months, we will remove all legacy blue checks. The way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022
On December 12th, 2022, one of the users posted a screenshot of the ‘Verified account’ page. The user captioned it ‘ruthless’ because the page read, ‘This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable’. To this, the CEO of the platform replied, “In a few months, we will remove all legacy blue checks. The way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical”. He credited himself for writing ‘the notable’ account line.
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The Billionaire Hiked The ‘Twitter Blue’ Price For iOS Users
Elon Musk has had many issues with Apple in the recent past. He critiqued their 15-30% tax on digital purchases of the apps. iOS users get access to the apps via the App Store. Recently, he alleged that Apple threatened him that they will remove the app from the platform and again criticized their tax policy. The company has made it clear that the taxes are reimbursements for app reviewers, who protect the users from any faulty app. Later, Musk confirmed that he has reconciled with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.
On December 10th, 2022, Twitter announced that they are launching their ‘Twitter Blue’ again with new features. But, there was a price discrepancy between iOS users and other users. The other users have to pay $8/month to access the subscriber-exclusive features. But, iOS users have to pay $11/month. The hiked price may be to evade the excessive taxes. The color of the blue tick will be different for different people. It will be gray for government officials and golden for businesses.
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