Twitter introduced on Saturday that it could start charging prospects $7.99 a month to obtain a verification examine mark on their profiles, considered one of a raft of product modifications that the corporate has been discussing since Elon Musk’s takeover just a little over every week in the past.
The announcement was included in notes accompanying a brand new replace to the Twitter app that appeared in Apple’s App Retailer. The notes defined that the paid verification system was now a function of the web site’s subscription service, Twitter Blue.
“Energy to the folks,” the announcement stated. “Your account will get a blue checkmark, identical to the celebrities, corporations, and politicians you already comply with.”
To fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Mr. Musk loaded the corporate with $13 billion in debt, which comes with greater than $1 billion a yr in curiosity funds. That has put Twitter below huge stress to chop prices and lift income. This week, Twitter laid off roughly half the corporate’s work drive, or about 3,700 jobs.
Along with charging for verification, Mr. Musk and his advisers have been weighing quite a few different concepts to herald extra income, from placing sure movies behind paywalls to reviving Vine, the now-defunct short-form video platform.
The replace notes unveiled on Saturday additionally promised that subscribers would obtain different advantages, together with “half the adverts & a lot better ones,” in addition to the power to publish longer movies on Twitter.
And in a series of tweets on Saturday, Mr. Musk stated that the corporate was engaged on an replace that will give customers the power to connect long-form textual content to tweets, which he stated would eradicate “the absurdity of notepad screenshots.”
However the change to Twitter’s signature verification system has proved particularly controversial. Up to now, the corporate manually assigned a blue circle with a white examine mark to high-profile figures and companies. With the midterm elections approaching on Tuesday, some election-integrity advocates have voiced fears that the brand new paid verification system may make it simpler for unhealthy actors to impersonate political candidates or different public figures.
The replace notes didn’t focus on any steps Twitter would possibly take to stop impersonation. However requested on Twitter how he would fight that drawback, Mr. Musk stated on Saturday that the corporate would droop impostors and hold their cash. “If scammers wish to do that 1,000,000 instances, that’s only a entire bunch of free cash,” he stated.