“The Only Realistic Way”
Twitter only allows paying subscribers to vote
03/28/2023, 07:30 am
After a slump in advertising revenue, Twitter boss Elon Musk is relying more on subscription revenues. Other functions, including the popular surveys, should be reserved for paying subscribers. And there are also changes in the “For you” area.
Twitter owner Elon Musk takes the next step in getting users to subscribe. From April 15th, only tweets from paying subscribers will appear in the “For you” area, where software contributions will be selected. That’s “the only realistic way” to defend against a flood of automated bot accounts, Musk argued.
The move could reduce the reach of users’ tweets unless they subscribed to the eight-euro monthly subscription. However, no figures are known on how many posts on Twitter can be displayed by the algorithm instead of the chronological order. After April 15, only paying subscribers will be able to take part in Twitter surveys. Among other things, Musk had voted on whether he should sell more shares in the electric car manufacturer Tesla he runs or whether the account of ex-President Donald Trump should be unlocked.
In a survey initiated by Musk last year, users also advocated that he should give up the post at Twitter. He promised to follow suit – but later said that the search for the boss should last until the end of this year. Musk speaks of “verified accounts” to which the functions should be reserved. However, the well-known verification tick on Twitter will soon have a different meaning than it used to. Before Musk’s takeover, Twitter awarded the blue icons to celebrities, politicians or journalists after verifying personal information. It meant that the account actually belongs to a specific person or company.
These previously assigned ticks should disappear from April 1st, as Musk recently announced. Instead, only customers of the “Twitter Blue” subscription offer should be allowed to have the same symbols in their accounts as before. After the chaos with fake accounts when the first payment ticks were issued in November, there are higher hurdles for this. For example, an account must be at least 90 days old and the profile photo must not have changed recently. However, according to the rules, personal identification is still not provided for. Musk bought Twitter for around $44 billion last October. After a slump in advertising revenue, he wants to focus more on subscription revenues.