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Did Elon Musk ignore Twitter’s internal warnings about $8 Blue verification? 5 facts
- The blue check mark was reserved for verified accounts of public figures
- Twitter officials warned of ‘impersonation’ and other damaging consequences. Read here
Long before, Elon Musk’s Twitter halted enrollment into its $8-a-month Blue subscription offering, officials had warned him what could happen if it would have been rolled out. And as expected, each of their prophecies turned out to be true.
Ahead of the announcement, Twitter's trust and safety team prepared a seven-page list of recommendations for Musk to understand the damaging consequences of Twitter blue debadging.
Things Twitter's trust and safety team warned Elon Musk:
One of the first things that the trust and safety team pointed out was scamming. The document, obtained by Verge, read: “Motivated scammers/bad actors could be willing to pay … to leverage increased amplification to achieve their ends where their upside exceeds the cost.”
Impersonation is another risk that the team spoke about. “Impersonation of world leaders, advertisers, brand partners, election officials, and other high profile individuals.”
“Legacy verification provides a critical signal in enforcing impersonation rules, the loss of which is likely to lead to an increase in impersonation of high-profile accounts on Twitter,” they asserted.
They also said Blue debadging (unless paid) and its related privileges might drive away high-profile users from the platform for good. “Removing privileges and exemptions from legacy verified accounts could cause confusion and loss of trust among high profile users,” they wrote.
Among the 400K Twitter users, there is a significant chunk who has the verified badge. Currently, Twitter has no automated way to remove verified badges from user accounts. The team identified, “to debadge a large number of legacy verified accounts if they decide not to pay for Blue, this will require high operational lift without investment. ”
Twitter Blue will probably come back end of next week: Musk
Twitter on Friday paused its recently announced $8 blue check subscription service on Friday as fake accounts mushroomed.
The coveted blue check mark was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures. But a subscription option, open to anyone prepared to pay, was rolled out earlier this week to help Twitter grow revenue as Musk fights to retain advertisers.
However, several users reported on Friday that the new subscription option for the blue verification check mark had disappeared, while a source told Reuters the offering has been dropped. Responding to the queries, Musk on Saturday said, Twitter Blue will probably "come back end of next week".
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Business NewsNewsWorldDid Elon Musk ignore Twitter’s internal warnings about $8 Blue verification? 5 facts
First Published:15 Nov 2022, 05:38 PM IST
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