Here’s Who’s NOT Paying Elon $8 A Month For Twitter Blue

Yesterday was the start of Elon’s latest desperate attempt to make money. Which is to kill off the legacy verification program in favour of a paid scheme that goes something like this:

Organizations can apply to become verified and any Twitter linked to a verified organization will be “automatically verified.” Though that’s going to cost $1000 a month and users who are affiliated to a verified organization will cost an additional $50 a month.
Twitter will maintain the verification status for Twitter’s top 500 advertisers and the 10,000 most followed organizations, according to company documents obtained by the New York Times.
A gray checkmark will be given to accounts representing a national government or government officials without requiring them to pay a subscription fee.
Everyone else needs to pay up for Twitter Blue.

To the shock of absolutely nobody, there’s been a whole lot of pushback on this scheme. The White House has said it would not pay to have its staff verified. And numerous media outlets have said that they’re not paying up either. Here’s a lengthy Twitter thread by Oliver Darcy of CNN on this:

New: The New York Times says it is not planning to pay for Twitter verification:

"We aren't planning to pay the monthly fee for verification of our institutional Twitter accounts," a spokesperson tells me.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

The Los Angeles Times also says it will not pay for Twitter Blue, noting "verification no longer establishes authority or credibility."

Here's an internal note from managing editor Sara Yasin that went out to staff. pic.twitter.com/DK8c2iAHpJ
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

BuzzFeed a no on paying for staff's blue checks: "As an organization, we will not cover fees for individuals to keep their blue checkmarks moving forward. There are several reasons for this, but one outweighs them all: a blue checkmark no longer means the handle is 'verified.'"
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

POLITICO also tells staff: "In the future, a checkmark will no longer mean you are a verified journalist. Instead, it will simply mean you are paying for benefits such as longer tweets and fewer ads. POLITICO will not pay for you to subscribe to Twitter Blue."
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

Vox Media also rejects the notion of paying for a checkmark on Twitter, per spox: "While Vox Media will take advantage of legacy account verification when provided to our brand accounts, it will generally not pay for employees to keep or gain Twitter verification."
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

"The Washington Post will not pay for Twitter Blue service as an institution or on behalf of our journalists," a spokesperson says. "It's evident that verified checkmarks no longer represent authority and expertise."
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

CNN: "As of right now, we do not plan to pay for Twitter Blue subscriptions for either our brand or individual accounts, except for a small number of select teams who need this verification as an essential part of newsgathering and reporting."
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 31, 2023

And a lot of big names on Twitter have said the same thing. Here’s a example of what I am talking about:

Can’t bro i got kids… https://t.co/dP0DlmVaDl
— Patrick Mahomes II (@PatrickMahomes) March 31, 2023

Don’t nobody want that raggedy blue check no way anymore 😂
— Michael Thomas (@Cantguardmike) March 31, 2023

Friends, there are bigger issues in the 🌎than the blue verified ✔️next to my name on this account. But without it, anyone can allege to be me. So, if I lose that ✔️ know I will leave this platform. Anyone appearing with it=an imposter. I tell you this while I’m still official.
— jason alexander (@IJasonAlexander) March 28, 2023

Happy to pay for a lot of things. A blue checkmark on THIS website ain’t one of them.
— Dan Rather (@DanRather) March 31, 2023

oh my god just take the checkmark already who cares
— chrissy teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 31, 2023

This is not only going badly for Elon as he’s not only going to fail miserably at increasing his revenue stream, but this is also becoming a PR issue as well. When big names and big institutions either flee the platform, or aren’t prominent, there is little value or incentive for the average Joe to be on the platform. Never mind pay Elon $8 a month. And if the average Joe isn’t Twitter, there’s no point for advertisers to be there either.

I will not that I am still seeing celebrities and organizations with their blue checkmarks. But who knows how much longer that will last? Or if Elon is about to one of the many U-turns that’s he’s done since buying Twitter. But I think it’s safe to say that Elon’s “ready, fire, aim” mentality is about to come back to bite him yet again.

This entry was posted on April 2, 2023 at 8:29 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Here’s Who’s NOT Paying Elon $8 A Month For Twitter Blue”

Elon Musk Has Created A Real Mess With His Verification Scheme | The IT Nerd Says:
April 3, 2023 at 1:10 pm

[…] is due to Elon being forced to backpedal pulling legacy verifications from people because of the epic backlash that this move has generated. In effect giving them more time to pay him, unless Elon doesn’t […]

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