Finance

Musk: Twitter Will Charge Monthly $8 Verification Fee

OCT 31 2022·Updated NOV 2 2022

Story

Image credit: dailywire

The Facts

In a tweet on Tuesday, new Twitter owner Elon Musk confirmed plans to charge users to retain their verified status and their blue checkmark for a monthly fee.
Al Jazeera
Musk reportedly gave his employees a Nov. 7 deadline to create the new paid verification shortly after completing his $44B purchase of the company last week.
New York Post
After initially considering charging $20, Musk has now settled on $8, which will be price-adjusted by country. He also promised subscribers priority in replies, mentions, and searches, the ability to post long videos and audio, and half as many ads.
Al Jazeera
The blue checkmark is both a status symbol for users and a way for the company and other users to ensure the verified identity of an account. Charging for a checkmark, however, could make it more difficult to determine the legitimacy of an account.
CNN
Twitter has a long way to go financially even if Musk implements the subscription service, which would amount to less than one-tenth of the approximate $1B in interest Musk has to pay on his loans to purchase the company.
guardian
Pursuing a subscription service has been one of the numerous things to happen at Twitter since the conclusion of Musk’s purchase. With rumors of incoming staff cuts, Musk has already fired the company's top executives. His ultimatum also includes the threat of being fired.
New York Post

Sources Split

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CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative B

If Musk goes through with this plan, it’ll contradict everything he has said in the past about wanting to eliminate all bots and fake accounts. The blue checkmark is the ultimate means of determining real from fake information, but misinformation will spread like wildfire if Twitter can’t get everyone to pay for their verification.

TechCrunch

Narrative A

In order to survive and thrive, Twitter has to become less reliant on ads, and a subscription service would be an excellent revenue source. Despite initial backlash from some of the site’s bigger users, a paid-subscription model could bolster Twitter Blue’s popularity because there would be clear requirements for getting a blue checkmark, thus making it more widely available.