Twitter’s new paid service Twitter Blue, which opened last weekend to users of the platform’s iOS app, became unavailable on Friday – The Guardian writes.
Twitter Blue would be an important step in changing the direction of Elon Musk, the essence of which is that for $7.99 a month, anyone can authenticate their account (that is, they can get a blue tick on it that was previously only available to well-known people and companies). The new owner, Musk, tried to offer the service as part of the company’s lucrative launch and fight fake profiles — for now only on a limited basis, among iPhone users — but it backfired: Countless hilarious users bought their own blue tick accounts to copy your name. After that to a celebrity and start trolling.
This was easy enough because the blue tick you get by subscribing to Blue looks just like the old blue tick only for popular people and brands (already reserved for verified accounts). On the profile pages it is already possible to find out if he is a really well-known and reliable actor or a simple Blue subscriber, but there is no difference in the bottom line.
Taking advantage of that, Twitter has in recent days been inundated with trolls acting in the name of others (by the way, many warned of its danger when the idea first came out). For one, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co. had to. For example, to post an apology because the person posted that they had made insulin free of insulin. Nintendo, Lockheed Martin and Musk’s private companies, Tesla and SpaceX, have also fallen victim to blue tick hunting.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter hasn’t been smooth sailing so far, in our article analyzing the first period, we compare his activities to a runaway run even before Twitter Blue failed. Among other things, the billionaire announced a serious reduction in the number of employees and ordered all employees to return from their offices at home. Because of the change in ownership, many of those not fired by Musk would also leave. Advertisers’ trust in the company has waned, and the Blue scandal has clearly not helped it.
On Thursday, Musk already tweeted that since so many people are returning to Blue, he has no choice but to remove the service for the coming months. The Guardian unsuccessfully tried to sign up from the iPhone on Friday, and Twitter Blue apparently became unavailable.
Additionally, Twitter began adding gray “official” tags to some notable accounts earlier this week. After a few hours, these started to disappear, only to return Thursday evening, at least for some accounts: the private Twitter account and some big companies like Amazon, Nike and Coca-Cola have been disabled, and the celebrities haven’t been shut down yet.
The Guardian attempted to inquire of Twitter what was happening, but there was no response to their message, which may not be surprising, as Musk’s massive downsizing has seriously affected the company’s communications department.
Elon Musk’s antics as a Twitter owner is unusual in business, but it’s not at all strange to his personality. You can read the photo of the eccentric billionaire here.
