(AP) NEW YORK — Twitter on Saturday launched a subscription service for $8 a month that includes a blue checkmark now given to verified accounts as new owner Elon Musk overhauls the platform’s verification system just ahead of U. S. midterm elections.
In an update to Apple iOS devices, Twitter said users who “sign up now” can receive the blue checkmark next to their names “just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.
The modification signals the end of Twitter’s existing verification process, which was introduced in 2009 to stop impersonations of high-profile accounts including those of politicians and celebrities. Prior to the redesign, Twitter had roughly 423,000 verified accounts, many of which were independent journalists from across the world who were confirmed by the business irrespective of the number of followers they had.
Although not flawless, the platform’s verification system has helped Twitter’s 238 million daily users decide whether the accounts they were obtaining information from were real. Experts have expressed major worries about upending the system. The “blue check” system’s new “verification” component is not mentioned in the upgrade Twitter made to its iOS app.
It happens a day after the business started laying off employees to save money, and more businesses are stopping their Twitter advertising as the cautious business community waits to see how it will run under its new management.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted that almost half of the company’s 7,500 employees had been let go.
On Saturday, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey accepted responsibility for the significant employment losses.
He served as Twitter’s CEO twice, the most recent of which lasted from 2015 until 2021.
I enlarged the company size too quickly, and I take full responsibility for why everyone is in this predicament, he tweeted. I’m sorry about that.
Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut the jobs “when the company is losing over $4M/day.
” He stated that staff who lost their employment were given three months’ pay as severance, but he did not go into detail about the daily losses the company experiences.
In the meanwhile, Musk tweeted on Friday that Twitter has already experienced “a big decrease in revenue” as a result of pressure from activist organisations on advertisers to leave the platform. Twitter is particularly impacted by this given its reliance on advertising for revenue up to this point.
Nearly $92 of every $100 in revenue it generated during the first half of this year came from advertising.
United Airlines is the most recent well-known company to halt its Twitter advertising. The Chicago-based United confirmed Saturday that it had made the move but declined to discuss the reasons for it or what it would need to see to resume advertising on the platform.
It joined the growing list of big companies pausing ads on Twitter, including General Motors, REI, General Mills and Audi.
Last week, Musk made an attempt to reassure advertisers by claiming that his devotion to free expression would prevent Twitter from devolving into a “free-for-all hellscape.”
However, there are still questions over whether Twitter users will send out more inflammatory messages if content monitoring is relaxed. If their adverts display next to them, that can damage the reputation of the companies.
Twitter introduces a $8 per month membership with a blue checkmark.
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