In early November, a first version of the subscription service was launched, but it caused chaos on the platform with the emergence of a large number of accounts claiming to represent certain individuals or companies. The service was suspended immediately, and its re-launch has been delayed numerous times. However, “Twitter” this time tightened the conditions for obtaining account verification, as the user must have opened his account at least 90 days ago, and linked it to a real, not “fake” phone number.
Also, the user must have activated his account at least once during the past month, and has not changed the main account picture or name during the past week.
Users who previously obtained the authentication mark can keep it without paying anything, according to the terms published by Twitter. The new subscription service will be available first in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom for $8 per month, or $11 for Apple’s iOS devices.
The platform did not provide an official explanation for the difference in the two prices, but Musk had previously criticized the profit (30%) that Apple collects from the amounts that users spend through the “Apple Store”.
This service is supposed to allow the Twitter platform, which was acquired by Musk at the end of October for $ 44 billion, to diversify its revenues, which are limited to . However, revenue from has declined in recent months with the economic downturn, while a large number of advertisers were disappointed by Musk’s acquisition of the platform, for fear of finding their ads in controversial content.
Musk had laid off half of the platform’s employees, including those responsible for content moderation, and reactivated the accounts of previously suspended personalities such as Donald Trump.
Over the past weekend, Musk published a number of controversial tweets, attacking the former head of trust and safety on Twitter, Yoel Roth, neutral names that do not show the person’s gender, and Joe Biden’s pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci.
The owner of “Tesla” and “SpaceX” also tried to attract attention by promoting for ten days what he called “Twitter files”, a euphemism for internal documents that supposedly provide explanations for content moderation issues that sparked controversy.
Milanesi considered Musk’s strategy to be ambiguous. And she added that the billionaire “wants to be seen as the person who saves democracy, but can he really do that with regard to the issue of those who oppose vaccines, for example?”
On Monday evening, Elon Musk dissolved the Council on Trust and Security, an advisory body made up of experts outside of Twitter who help set the company’s oversight policy, the Washington Post and CNN reported.