In another shocking move, Elon Musk has paused the recently announced $8 Twitter Blue tick subscription.
New Twitter Inc. CEO Elon Musk has discontinued the recently announced $8 Blue Checks subscription service due to the recent shocking rise in the number of fake accounts on the social media platform. Musk has also returned the ‘official’ badge to some Twitter users. It can be known that the blue Twitter check mark was used to indicate a verified account and was previously reserved mainly for famous personalities such as accounts of politicians, journalists and other public figures.
However, with the announcement of the $8 subscription option, it became easier for any Twitter user to add a blue verified tick to their account. Musk had launched the subscription-based blue brand earlier this week to help Twitter boost revenue. According to Reuters, multiple users on Friday reported that the new opt-in option for the blue check mark had disappeared, while one source reported that the offer was removed. Twitter has yet to comment on the same.
Fake accounts purporting to be big brands have turned up with the blue check since the new launch, including Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX, as well as Roblox, Nestle and Lockheed Martin, Reuters said in a report. “To combat phishing, we’ve added an ‘Official’ tag to some accounts,” Twitter’s support account, which has the official tag, tweeted Friday. You can tell that the official tag was originally introduced on Wednesday, but Musk removed it just a few hours later.
Musk also tweeted that Twitter users who engage in phishing without clearly specifying it as a “parody” account would be permanently suspended without warning.
This is not the only change that Musk introduced or brought to Twitter after acquiring the social media platform. As a first move, after taking over Twitter, Musk fired top officials, including the social media platform’s board and top executives, and later nearly half of Twitter’s workforce. He also raised the possibility of Twitter going bankrupt.
According to a report, the US Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that it was watching Twitter with “deep concern.”