New Twitter owner Elon Musk outlined his plans for a revamped Twitter Blue, the optional paid service the company launched in the months before Musk’s takeover. Musk now plans to charge users at least $8 per month to keep their blue checkmark verification badges and more extra features. Over the weekend, reports surfaced that Musk planned to charge $20 for this new Twitter Blue, but that changed after widespread criticism.
Previously, Twitter verification was free. Users had to fill out a form and journalists had to provide links to their published work before Twitter would eventually grant or deny verification. On Sunday, sources told The Verge that Musk planned to add this to a new version of Twitter Blue that would cost $19.99. Verified users would have 90 days to subscribe or will lose their blue checkmark. Twitter employees were reportedly told they needed to finish the project by Nov. 7 or would be fired. Platformer first reported that Twitter was considering charging users to keep verification badges.
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After the news surfaced, many prominent Twitter users spoke out against the idea. Horror writer Stephen King vowed to leave the platform. “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F— that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron,” King wrote.
“We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers,” Musk replied to King. “How about $8?”
King didn’t respond to Musk, who decided on his own that $8 sounded better than $20 for a previously free feature. “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bulls—,” he wrote on Tuesday. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
Musk then said the price would change “by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.” He said the new Twitter Blue will also grant users “priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam,” “ability to post long video & audio,” and “half as many ads.” There will also be “paywall bypass” for publishers “willing to work” with Twitter.
“This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators,” Musk wrote. “There will be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, which is already the case for politicians.”
Before Musk, Twitter Blue was a $4.99 per month subscription service that was originally launched last year at $2.99 per month. The service allows users to fix typos in tweets already sent and adds a list of Top Articles shared by people users follow. The service also offered access to ad-free versions of articles, but this feature was reportedly ended at the end of business on Monday.
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