Twitter to refrain from giving blue verification checkmarks to users who purchase its revamped $7.99/month Twitter Blue subscription until November 9 – reports The New York Times.
The information comes from an internal memo reviewed by the publication. According to the memo, Twitter management decided to delay the rollout of the new verification checkmarks due to Tuesday’s midterm elections.
The new Twitter Blue subscription, the brainchild of newly crowned Twitter overlord Elon Musk and his team, bundles account verification, fewer ads, and several other features for the price of $7.99 per month. However, it also allows anyone with $8 to spend to get a verified Twitter account, increasing the potential for bad actors to spread misinformation.
On Saturday, a Twitter employee posed a question on an internal Slack channel asking why the social network was “making such a risky change ahead of the election, which has the potential to cause election interference.”
The pay-for-verification system set up by Twitter could contribute to the confusion leading up to Election Day and Election Day. A manager working on Twitter’s reworked verification badge project informed employees on Sunday that “we’ve made the decision to move the launch of this version to November 9, after the election.”
An update to the iOS Twitter app with the new $7.99 subscription has already started rolling out to users, although the subscription itself has yet to go live. That said, a launch is expected imminently.
Although it looks like new Twitter Blue subscribers will start receiving their blue ticks on Wednesday, Musk said on Saturday that existing verified accounts won’t lose their blue ticks until a few months after the new subscription rolls out.
Are we going to lose our verified status right away? What is the timeframe for implementing the changes?
—Aaron Cohn (@aaroncohn30) November 5, 2022
Twitter is also preparing a new feature in Blue that will allow users to post longer videos on the platform. Musk said Twitter would pay video creators a higher percentage of ad revenue from their content than YouTube.
The redesign of Twitter Blue is just one of many major changes Musk has planned for the platform.
It also wants to launch new features like “Paywalled Video” and introduce creator monetization for all forms of content. Musk even asked Twitter staff to find $1 billion in annual infrastructure savings. To top it off, Twitter will have to enact all of these orders with half the number of employees, since Musk laid off 50% of Twitter’s workforce on Friday.
