Twitter relaunches its “Blue” service: only verified accounts will be able to vote in polls

First modification: 03/28/2023 – 17:33

One of the reasons that the billionaire Elon Musk gave for wanting to abandon the purchase of Twitter in 2022 was the enormous presence of the so-called ‘bots’ on the social network, the same ones that, now that he has control of the network after being forced to close the business, wants to attack.

The mogul with businesses ranging from luxury electric cars to space travel revealed that, starting in mid-April, only verified Twitter accounts could cast their vote in the platform’s polls.

Another of the measures announced has to do with the fact that only these accounts that pay seven dollars a month for a subscription will be eligible to appear in the “For you” recommendations of the social network, which show a sequence of tweets of possible interest.

Musk announces the relaunch of the “Blue” service

The Tesla owner published a tweet on Tuesday announcing these new measures represent a reorganization of the so-called “Twitter Blue”, a rating that is applied to accounts that pay a fee to achieve verification and thus obtain a blue mark.

After months of delay, Musk is now promising that next Saturday is the deadline for celebrities, journalists and others who have been free verified to pay up or lose their status.

This service was initially billed as one of Musk’s first moves after taking over Twitter, but he had to temporarily suspend it days after its launch.

“Twitter Blue” awarded blue badges to anyone willing to pay $8 a month, and the network was quickly flooded with fake accounts, including those posing as Nintendo, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and Musk’s own companies like Tesla. and SpaceX.

The relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone and iPad users. Subscribers are supposed to see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos, and have their tweets stand out more.

With Reuters, EFE and AP