Louise Bernard, with Solène Delinger
Several incidents on Twitter convinced his new boss, Elon Musk, to postpone the launch of the paid subscription. The billionaire said he wanted to be “sure” that this new feature, allowing you to have a certified account for eight dollars a month, is “concrete”.
The paid subscription is postponed to the end of the month, to November 29, “to be sure that it is concrete” according to the words of the new boss of the social network. It was supposed to take place this weekend. But several incidents last week convinced Elon Musk to postpone the launch.
A function initially reserved for certain public figures
Because Twitter offered this new subscription in preview to users equipped with iPhone. By paying eight dollars a month, anyone can now have their account certified, ie have a small blue logo next to their name. Until now, it was a function reserved for certain public figures or institutions, the media or journalists. A function that meant that the identity of the account owner was verified.
Twitter wants to tweak the settings
But now that anyone can get this little logo, some users have had fun paying a subscription and impersonating public figures, like Joe Biden or even a pharmaceutical company. With a fake account that had the little logo, it was advertised that insulin was free for everyone. Result: the company lost several billion dollars and it apologized. The new subscription was then suspended by Twitter, which therefore prefers to fine-tune the settings. Elon Musk assures that in the future, if an account changes its name, it will lose its little blue logo, as long as Twitter has not verified its identity.