By With a blue tick 8$ subscription, Elon Musk ruined years of effort by Twitter to prevent false and misleading news
Just days after eliminating it, Elon Musk’s Twitter on Friday restored the “official” badge to some accounts, however, several users said the new subscription option for the blue verification check mark was no longer available.
The action comes in response to a rise in bogus accounts on the platform after new CEO Elon Musk enabled users to pay $8 for the coveted blue check mark, which was previously only available to verified accounts of prominent figures like actors, politicians, and other public figures.
The blue check has appeared on fake accounts for several well-known companies, including Musk’s SpaceX, Roblox, Nestle, and Lockheed Martin.
Twitter’s support account, which has the “official” tag, tweeted on Friday, “To fight impersonation, we’ve introduced an ‘Official’ badge to some accounts.” Just hours after introducing the new label, Musk tweeted on Wednesday that he had “killed” it.
After a fake account tweeted that insulin would be free, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly apologized amid political outrage and questions about the high cost of the drug.
The corporation reiterated its Twitter handle and said, “We apologize to anybody who has been served a deceptive message from a fake Lilly account.”
Among other instances, there were several false Tweets about Tesla that were being shared on the site by a verified account with the same profile image as the company’s official account.
Over the past few years, Twitter has worked to try to remedy that (misinformation). And it appears that Elon Musk has undone it in just a few weeks,” said A.J. Bauer, a lecturer at the University of Alabama.
According to Musk, accounts that employ impersonation on Twitter without explicitly designating it as “parody” would be immediately and permanently suspended. Several phony brand accounts have been suspended, including those of Nintendo and BP.
Many users reported that the option to subscribe to Twitter Blue, the paid service that includes blue check verification, had vanished. An inquiry for feedback on it received no response from Twitter. Musk claimed earlier in the day that, despite the likelihood of a challenging economy, his firms will be well-positioned in 2023.
A day after he mentioned the possibility of Twitter filing for bankruptcy, Musk sent a tweet about it. According to three people who viewed the email and told Reuters that Musk sent it to the entire company, Twitter will not be able to “survive the oncoming economic crisis” if subscription fees do not increase to balance out declining advertising revenue.
Since Musk took charge, a lot of businesses, including General Motors and United Airlines, have stopped or reduced their platform advertising. The billionaire responded by stating on Wednesday that he wanted to use Twitter as a force for truth and get rid of phony accounts.
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