As of May 6, Twitter users can reward the accounts they value most with hard cash. For the moment, only a selection of English-speaking authors – creators, journalists, experts, NGOs in particular – can display on their Twitter account a small icon pointing to a payment system to pay them money.
In a blog post, the social network indicates that other members will soon be able to take advantage of this feature, called Tip Jar, which can be translated as “Tip jar”. Authors of tweets posted speaking languages other than English may be affected.
By addressing future beneficiaries, Twitter imagines several reasons for requesting money payments: “On your birthday, or if you need a little more help, (or) after your tweet goes viral”. For the moment, Twitter users will not be able to directly reward a skilfully crafted message: they will first have to click on the author’s profile to see the tip jar displayed, symbolized by a ticket.
Payment in cryptocurrency possible
This feature has the potential to change the face of Twitter by speeding up the race for viral messages and, perhaps, dangling with writers the hope of income as sudden and fleeting as a good tweet.
For the moment, Twitter does not take a commission on tips, and relies on trusted intermediaries of international stature such as payment specialists PayPal, Cash App, and Venmo, on the independent music platform Bandcamp, or again the digital tip specialist Patreon.
The start of the Tip Jar service was a failure from day one: while paying a tip via Paypal to Rachel Tobac, developer and business manager, a donor noticed that the recipient’s mailing address was displayed on his screen. , as happens when receiving a PayPal payment. This privacy violation was denounced by Rachel Tobac in a tweet of discontent, where she was concerned about a system that could get the mailing addresses of Twitter users. Twitter support has for his part recalled that in the event of a tip payment, its services did share personal information with those of other applications.
Through these international services, payment can be made in currencies, or even in cryptocurrencies, some of the services deployed by Twitter accepting bitcoin transactions. Twitter boss Jack Dorsey recently showed his support for these digital currencies protected by an encryption chain. It released its very first Twitter post back in March, dating back to 2006, in the form of an NFT – a locked digital file – for the sum of 1,630 ethereums, which represents approximately 2.1 million euros.