Twitter is trending for all the wrong reasons, with the purge of verified blue ticks impacting high-profile users, and even the New York Times losing its verified status. But how did we get here, and what does it all mean for users of the embattled social media platform?
In 2009, three years after its launch, Twitter introduced a verification system that would add a blue check next to verified accounts. The move was seen as a way of tackling the problem of impersonators hijacking the brands of well-known individuals after baseball star Tony La Russa filed a lawsuit against Twitter over a fake page.
After users started complaining about the challenges of knowing which accounts were real or fake, something had to change. The platform's online help section stated that the blue checkmark indicates active, notable, and authentic accounts of public interest that Twitter had independently verified, based on specific requirements. Users that received the verified account status also had the peace of mind that fake accounts seeking to impersonate them or their brand would be easily identifiable.
The verification system began with honorable intentions, but became a digital status symbol. As a result, online guides sprang up promising to give aspiring influencers the secret of how to become verified. Of course, the system was far from perfect, but it did offer a way for users to determine that the people they were interacting with were who they said they were.
The scramble for profit
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, it quickly became apparent that the company was not profitable and had severe debt problems. The challenge was therefore to make it profitable. The most obvious answer to Musk was to cut back staff and monetize the verification process. The message was clear: every account that wanted to keep its checkmark would need to subscribe to Twitter Blue, which costs $8 a month for individual web users.
Twitter also unveiled plans to charge businesses and big brands a whopping $1,000 a month for a gold verification badge. In what many saw as an April Fools' prank, Twitter announced it was starting to remove verification badges from accounts with a blue tick for non-subscribers. But it was no laughing matter for the New York Times, which was one of the first victims of the purge after refusing to pay to remain verified.
The actor William Shatner weighed in, tweeting to Musk, "Now you're telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free?" But even the Star Trek legend’s concerns about impersonators using his name by paying for a blue check mark was not enough to change Musk's mind.
The removal of verified accounts is said to be a time-consuming manual process. After the great purge of ticks, the company now states that every verified account is either subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account, making it impossible for users to know which accounts are verified and which have paid for the guise of credibility.
Digital shakedown
It wasn't a great weekend at Twitter towers, after an argument between Musk and the New York Times spilled out into the public arena. Like a child throwing their toys out of a pram, the argument concluded with Musk accusing the media outlet of being hypocritical for locking content behind a paywall and removing its blue tick.
The White House and basketball player LeBron James were among those who flatly refused to pay for the infamous blue tick. The move is widely seen as a digital shakedown that has replaced a much-needed verification system with something meaningless that exacerbates the platform's problem with imposters and money-soliciting scams.
Despite the reactions online, Musk still sees paid verification as a way of making Twitter profitable. But he also has the added pressure that his investment is worth less than half his purchase price just six months ago. But in doing so, he has redefined what verification means and created confusion with users no longer able to determine if an account of public interest is authentic.
The legacy system was far from perfect. Unfortunately, there have been examples of celebrities and social media influencers who believed that this tiny blue checkmark meant that their opinions were more important than those of others online. Some have argued that the new system is a great leveler where everyone follows the same rules.
While some have argued that a pay-to-play system could just further divide the haves and have-nots, Tim Sweeney, co-founder and CEO of Fortnite developer Epic Games, thinks that changes are a positive step for Twitter. He went on to say that treating everyone the same is principled, and called out the practice of selling a product but giving it to elites for free as just plain wrong.
Twitter Blue has replaced person-level verification as a service with something that only confirms an account owner is a paid subscriber. This change in definition makes the service worthless to users and brands. As a digital “I'm Spartacus” moment gathers momentum, the only verified users on the platform will be those who paid the protection money to their digital overlord while being ridiculed by authentic accounts that refused to pay the entry fee.
It is currently impossible to differentiate between legacy and paid verified Twitter accounts. These changes only seem to add confusion and the mounting problems at Twitter rather than solving anything. As a result, it's difficult to see the value in any user having a blue checkmark next to their username. Whether this is good or bad is a debate for another day because, in the fast-moving world of Twitter, many have already moved on to a shiny dog icon sending dogecoin to the moon.
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