Like anyone who has just made a potentially regrettable purchase, Elon Musk is looking for new ways to make a quick buck. He has the idea of creating a Twitter subscription that would quickly become essential for content creators, with the risk of a two-speed system.
Despite the many controversies and changes, one of the main talking points surrounding Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is the plan to charge users for being checked. While the first internal indiscretions originally indicated that it would become chargeable, for 20 dollars per month, the latest tweets from Elon Musk indicate that verification will eventually cost $8 per month.
What can you get for $8 a month?
What is known about this paid subscription on Twitter is that it will be established from TwitterBlue, a subscription already available in some English-speaking countries. Elon Musk therefore confirms that this new subscription will be massively deployed and its price will be adjusted by country according to “ purchasing power “.
Elon Musk continued to chat on Twitter throughout the day. He explained that this subscription would allow his subscribers to have priority in replies, mentions and research, the possibility of publishing long videos and audio, and to see half as many advertisements. According to Elon Musk, it is also a means of collaborating with media who wish to propose a circumvention ofpaywall against income. Elon Musk claims that this subscription system will give Twitter an income for ” reward content creators“.
What seems surprising here is to see Elon Musk making hasty decisions, based on the responses he gets, or the tweets he sees. For example, it was when he discovered a tweet from Stephen King, the writer, that he decided to charge only 8 dollars instead of 20.
We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022
After this exchange, Elon Musk wrote: “JI’ll explain the reasoning in a longer form before this is implemented. This is the only way to defeat bots and trolls.“. Paying Twitter would therefore make it possible to fight effectively against bots and spam, according to him.
These functionalities would be added to that of the subscriptionBluecurrent, which costs $5 per month and is available in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It allows users to edit their tweets, get early access to new features and so right now. However, Twitter Blue and the verification system are entirely separate, at least for now.
Critics point out that this new system could defeat the current purpose of verification: to show that a Twitter account actually belongs to the brand, celebrity, journalist, influencer or author. who he claims to be.
Uncertainty about the future of Twitter
We have yet to see how that pans out, but for now, Twitter users face a lot of uncertainty about the future of the social network.
Anyone who has used Twitter knows that it can often be a social network where harassment, bullying and conspiracy theories are present. However, over the past few years, Twitter has set up internal teams dedicated to content moderation and user safety in an attempt to improve the user experience. Elon Musk’s takeover could put those improvements in jeopardy. The billionaire says he doesn’t believe Twitter should do so much content moderation and he also said he won’t remove any legal content.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Elon Musk’s remark about releasing the bird was met with a warning from Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market. In a response to the entrepreneur, which sounds like a call to order, the political leader recalled, on October 28, 2022, “that in Europe the bird will fly by our rules“.
Already in April, Thierry Breton had pointed out that Twitter in the sauce of Elon Musk could not be exonerated from respecting the law in Europe, whatever he may say. If necessary, the DSA (Digital Services Act) authorizes sanctions potentially reaching up to 6% of worldwide turnover. If offenses are repeated, a banishment from the Old Continent is even possible.
At this time, Twitter has not changed its moderation policy. Nevertheless, Elon Musk announced the formation of aContent Moderation Board». He said the new body would bring together “very different points of viewand that no decisions on content policy or reinstatement of accounts will be made until the board meets.
According to Bloomberg, whose information was taken up by Numerama, Elon Musk would have taken as a first decision to cancel the exclusions for life from the social network. This will no doubt be the case for Donald Trump, who should soon be able to tweet again. Regarding the long term, we are waiting to learn more about the X project already mentioned by Elon Musk.
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