One of the main talking points surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is the new owner’s plan to charge users for verification. While reports originally said the blue checkmark would cost $20 per month, his latest tweets say verification will cost $8 a month.
Earlier today, Musk tweeted: “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
He continued by saying, “Price adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity”, but since it’s unclear if Musk’s tweets are actually announcements or just throwing ideas out to the audience, we don’t yet know what Twitter will and won’t eventually implement.
Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.
Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
Musk’s thread continued, with him saying subscribers will get priority in replies, mentions, and search, the ability to post long video and audio, and half as many ads. According to Musk, the company could give publishers “willing to work” with Twitter a bypass on the paywall. Musk claims the verification subscription system will give Twitter a revenue to “reward content creators”.
This thread of tweets describing the features comes just hours after Musk defended paywalled verification. Late last night, Musk replied to a tweet from author Stephen King, who was complaining about paying Twitter to keep his blue check. Musk responded, saying “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”
In a follow-up tweet, Musk wrote, “I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls.”
Many Twitter users are confused about Musk’s messaging, with some saying that verification is not a status symbol, but a way to prevent scammers from catfishing as journalists, content creators, and celebrites.
Right now, Twitter Blue costs $4.99/month and lets users edit their tweets, get early access to new features, and more. However, Twitter Blue and verification are currently entirely separate. Under Musk’s reported plan, Twitter users who are already verified will have 90 days to subscribe to the new plan to keep their blue checkmark.
This also means any currently unverified users could theoretically subscribe to become instantly verified. And, it’s worth a mention that the team on the project was reportedly told they have until November 7 to launch the new feature, or they will be fired.
Blogroll image credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
