Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez obtained right into a spat with Elon Musk – on Twitter, in fact – over Mr Musk’s plan to cost Twitter customers $8 per 30 days for a verified subscription.
“Lmao at a billionaire earnestly attempting to promote folks on the concept ‘free speech’ is definitely a $8/mo subscription plan,” the New York Congresswoman tweeted on Tuesday.
A number of hours later, Mr Musk responded:
Musk initially mentioned he would cost $19.99 for a blue verify mark on the platform, which has beforehand been free and is a stamp of authenticity on consumer accounts.
Beneath heavy criticism, the world’s richest man then mentioned he deliberate to decrease the payment to $8 throughout a back-and-forth with writer Stephen King.
“We have to pay the payments someway,” he tweeted at King on Monday. “Twitter can not rely completely on advertisers. How about $8?”
He later added: “Twitter’s present lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bulls***. Energy to the folks! Blue for $8/month.”
He added that subscribers would get precedence in replies, mentions and search, together with the power to submit longer video and audio content material whereas seeing half as many advertisements as non-paying customers.
Lmao at a billionaire earnestly attempting to promote folks on the concept “free speech” is definitely a $8/mo subscription plan
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 2, 2022
Musk has overseen a chaotic few days at Twitter since he competed his $44bn takeover deal final week.
He fired the social networking web site’s prime executives, dissolved the board, walked again a pledge to permit free speech to reign, and introduced he would appoint an “unbiased council” to rule on the thorny problem of content material moderation.
Musk has sought to appease some pro-Maga accounts, promising to “look into” their complaints about shadow bans and misplaced followers.
He additionally promoted a pretend conspiracy principle concerning the assault on the husband of Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
As hate speech on the platform has risen dramatically since Musk assumed management, advertisers have signalled they might stroll away.
In a potential signal the takeover will not be going in accordance with plan, Musk modified his Twitter bio from “Chief Twit” to “Twitter Criticism Hotline Operator”.