Elon Musk, who recently purchased Twitter for $44 billion, has backed down on his plan to install a $20 monthly payment plan to become or maintain being verified on the platform. In response to criticism from author Stephen King, Musk offered to lower the price to $8 a month.
"$20 a month to keep my blue check?" King wrote on Monday. "Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron."
Musk replied: "We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?"
He added: "I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls."
In more tweets, Musk explained that those who pay the $8 will get priority in replies, mentions & search, the ability to post long-form video & audio, get half as many ads, and more.
"This will destroy the bots. If a paid Blue account engages in spam/scam, that account will be suspended," Musk explained. "Essentially, this raises the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude."
Critics of the move have stated that charging for verification could increase the spread of misinformation, as many journalists, celebrities, or other public figures may not want to pay for the subscription. In this case, it would be difficult for users to distinguish whether an account is authentic or not.
Freddie Gibbs was among the many voices to speak out against the initiative, writing in a tweet, "Y’all can have this blue check shit."
Musk said in an open letter to advertisers after the purchase that he bought the platform in hopes of maintaining the platform as “a common digital town square.”
Check out Musk's recent posts on Twitter below.
[Via]
