Twitter and the Blue Check

[Dave Gray]

So, the blue check is now gone from people who don't pay for it.  And those replies from people with blue checks are prioritized in the algorithm.

I noticed this right away.  Aside from businesses or people who are monetizing their persona, why any normal person would pay $8 a month to be verified on social media is completely beyond me.

I follow Bill Maher, and I usually do not agree with Bill Maher these days (especially the clips he uploads to Twitter, as I assume they're his most controversial takes that are driving the most engagement.)

But today, something was different -- it was a bunch of people agreeing with Bill Maher.  Usually it's people calling him out of touch.

And I saw that all of the responses were people who paid for Twitter, which is .... a type, let's say...



So.  I don't know.  ...doesn't seem good.  For me at least.

[Spider-Dan]

Musk is doing his best to drive Twitter into the ground in the name of "free speech" (in reality: boosting right-wing narratives).

First, in response to conservatives complaining about the elitism of blue checks (which were simply accounts verified to be who they claim to be),  Musk allowed anyone to pay $8/month for a "Verified" checkmark.  This quickly resulted in shenanigans from impersonators with newly-purchased "Verified" checkmarks:





Then Musk changed it so that some checkmarks would say "Verified," while others would say "Twitter Blue subscriber," which led to a lot of Musk fans who subscribe for Twitter Blue being made fun of for paying for Twitter.  The next step was to make the checkmarks say "Verified or a Twitter Blue subscriber" to stop the humiliation of his supporters.  And now he's gotten rid of the Verified checkmark altogether.

The most clownish part of this who checkmark fiasco is that Musk is personally "paying for" (read: giving away for free) Twitter Blue subscriptions to select celebrities like LeBron James and Stephen King, so that the blue checkmark is not exclusively a marker for Elon Musk fanboys.  This apparent effort to improve the public perception of Musk's new blue checkmarks has not gone unnoticed; Stephen King himself has already pointed this out.

And all of this is completely separate from Mr. Free Speech's repeated attempts to prohibit or shadowban tweets that mention Twitter's competitors, or his decision to label NPR "US state-affiliated media" because he doesn't agree with their coverage (despite the fact that NPR was literally one of Twitter's two examples of organizations that do NOT qualify as "state-affiliated media" because they have editorial independence).  On the same day that Musk eliminated Verified status, Twitter also eliminated the "state-affiliated media" tag for all outlets, including those controlled by the Russian or Chinese governments.

Just a banner day for disinformation all around.  I've been calling out Musk as a con man and a grifter for a decade at this point, and he just keeps going further to prove it to anyone who still has doubts.

[Spider-Dan]

Some more relevant details:

Apparently, due to the obvious low quality content that is the hallmark of Musk-fan Twitter Blue subscribers, there is something of a campaign by other Twitter users to simply block blue checks on sight.  And this isn't just petty Elon Musk backlash; Musk has mentioned that the boosting algorithm heavily weights "verified users" (i.e. Blue subscribers), which means that if you DON'T block his fanclub and they brigade one of your tweets, you will effectively be shadowbanned.  The only safe option to avoid this outcome is to simply block every bluecheck on sight.

Of course, like most "free speech" advocates on the right, Musk only wants to protect free speech that he believes is acceptable.  So naturally, the BlockTheBlue Twitter account that was advocating to block all bluechecks was... suspended.  Because of course it was.

And let's get this straight: I have no problem with Musk blocking an account that exists solely to reduce the amount of money going into his pocket.  Twitter is a private company.  But don't tell me that you are some sort of Free Speech Champion when you're doing it.

(Full disclosure: although I regularly read Twitter, I do not have and have never had a Twitter account.)

[Dave Gray]

So, the blue check marks are back today for a lot of the people who hadn't paid.

I don't know what's going on with this but it definitely geeked up the algorithm.  Now all anyone is talking about today is the blue checkmark.  And apparently a fire-breathing dragon from a Disneyland show went up in flames in the middle of the show and burned to a smoldering pile.

[Spider-Dan]

Apparently Musk is "paying for" blue checkmarks for almost all accounts with 1M+ followers.
It seems that "leveling the playing field for everyone" = famous people get a free subscription that everyone else has to pay for.

[Fau Teixeira]

twitter has becoming almost unreadable .. replies by paid blue checks are magnified and are just pure garbage