Twitter verification could cost $20 per month, as Musk says 'we have to pay the bills somehow'
Twitter verification could cost $20 per month, as Musk says 'we have to pay the bills somehow'
Elon Musk wants to make users pay for Twitter verification and has set a deadline of November 7 for the change to be introduced
Update: Elon Musk has responded to the outcry over Twitter verification costing $20 a month, and vowed to explain the reasoning behind the upcoming change.
In response to author Stephen King, who tweeted that he wouldn’t pay to keep his blue check, Musk said “We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?”
Musk also tweeted “I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls.”
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX originally tried to pull out of his deal to buy Twitter due to concerns over how many fake accounts Twitter has.
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Twitter verification cost
💰 Twitter looks set to charge $20 for Twitter verification
⏰ Users will have 90 days to sign up for Twitter Blue or lose their checkmark
📆 Musk has set a deadline of November 7 for the change to occur
🔥 If the deadline is missed, Musk will reportedly fire those involved
Original story: Elon Musk is reportedly planning to charge users $20 for Twitter verification, and there’s not a chance in hell I’m stumping up that sort of cash for the privilege of keeping my virtual badge.
According to The Verge, “Chief Twit” Elon Musk has reportedly set a deadline of November 7 for paid verification to be introduced and if it isn’t delivered on time, people will be fired. Yikes.
The new change will be rolled into a revamped Twitter Blue, which will cost $19.99 per month instead of $4.99, and verified users will have 90 days to subscribe or risk losing their precious blue checkmark for good.
Twitter Blue currently lets subscribers view ad-free articles, undo tweets, and – as of recently – edit tweets. The optional service is only available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but it isn’t widely adopted.
Musk’s clearly hoping to change that by threatening to take users’ verification badges away unless they pay for them – and the reaction to locking ticks behind a paywall has been almost overwhelmingly negative.
It appears that the majority of users who are sporting the coveted checkmark – at least the ones that I follow – won’t pay to keep their Twitter verification if the change does indeed come into effect.
What’s more, the idea of paying to be verified brings with it a lot of obvious concerns. Twitter verification has served as a way to safely identify users as trustworthy and genuine, whether they’re celebrities, journalists, or public figures.
Forcing people to pay to keep this identifier opens the system up for abuse, as those trustworthy accounts would be easier to spoof without a checkmark present. It also means that checkmarks will be reserved for those who have the means to pay, which leans more toward Twitter verification being nothing more than a vanity exercise.
There’s no way I can justify paying $20 per month just so people know that my account is genuine, and ultimately I shouldn’t have to. With Spotify prices rising in the new year, along with Apple TV+ and Apple Music, it’s becoming difficult to justify keeping my subscriptions to services that I currently use.
In other Twitter news, Musk recently outlined his vision for Twitter in an open letter to advertisers and has since said no banned accounts will be reinstated until they’ve been checked by Twitter’s new content moderation council, which is made up of “widely diverse viewpoints.”
It’s clear the South African billionaire shake-up of Twitter has begun, and he’s seemingly after a return on his $44bn investment sooner rather than later. More changes are bound to happen, and Musk is even asking his followers directly whether features like Vine should return.
First published: October 31, 2022
Updated: November 1, 2022