2023-04-23 17:27:07
New day, new misunderstanding on Elon Musk’s Twitter. Confusion reigned supreme on Saturday, with blue certification badges making a comeback on some media accounts or personalities, whether they wanted it or not. “On my soul I didn’t pay for Twitter Blue, Tesla man you’ll feel my wrath! », tweeted American rapper Lil Nas Xwhose profile shows the blue check again.
Formerly free, and a guarantee of authenticity and notoriety, it now means that the user is subscribed to Twitter Blue (for 8 dollars per month) and that his telephone number has been verified by the platform. As a reminder, accounts that had the old blue badge lost it on Thursday, unless they paid for the new one, following Elon Musk’s strategy put in place this winter to generate new revenue.
“I have not subscribed to Twitter Blue”
But a tiny fraction of distinguished former users subscribed – less than 5% of the 407,000 profiles concerned, according to researcher Travis Brown. But surprise, a growing number of personalities have found a blue tick, in recent days, apparently without action on their part, as the writer Stephen Kingthe champion de NBA LeBron James or former President Donald Trump.
Many authenticated users despite themselves were keen to let it be known that they had nothing to do with it, because the controversial badge has become a symbol of support for Elon Musk. “Please note that I have not subscribed to Twitter Blue, although for some mysterious reason my blue tick is appearing again,” said author Rick Wilson.
The boss of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX announced on Friday on the social network that he was “personally paying for a few subscriptions”. “Checkmate,” he said. mysteriously tweeted Saturday, amid speculation. Accounts of deceased people, such as American chef Anthony Bourdain, have also received the new blue badge.
And many official media accounts have it too, even the New York Times, which lost its certification in early April after Elon Musk called the information published there “propaganda”. Some major news organizations have a gold badge reserved for “verified organizations” that pay at least $1,000 per month. But US public radio NPR and public media group CBC Radio-Canada had still not resumed tweeting as of Saturday.
These two organizations recently suspended their activities on Twitter in protest against the labels that Twitter had attached to them: “government-funded media” or “state-affiliated”, terms previously reserved for non-independent, government-funded media. autocratic. On Friday, Elon Musk’s platform removed these labels, including for the official Chinese agency Xinhua (New China) or the Russian Russia Today (RT).
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