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| Twitter postpones the launch of its paid account verification service |
The New York Times reported on Sunday that Twitter has delayed obtaining blue verification badges for users of its new monthly subscription service until after the US midterm elections scheduled for next Tuesday.
Twitter's delay comes a day before it is announced that it will launch a program that will allow subscribers to the paid service Twitter Blue to get the token on their personal accounts for $7.99 a month.
"It's a powerful motivator for fans," Twitter said in its announcement of the new feature. "Your account will get a blue verification badge, just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you follow," she added.
However, many Twitter users and employees fear that paid blue ticks will lead to confusion ahead of next Tuesday's elections, as they make it easier for users to make their accounts unique as if they were an official entity, and then spread lies about the elections. It can provoke hate speech.
According to The New York Times, a Twitter contributor to the messaging channel Slack questioned why the network would make such a risky change before the election that could disrupt the election.
"We have decided to postpone the launch until November 9, after the elections," the director in charge of the Blue Label project responded on Sunday. That date is next Wednesday, the day after the election, while some results are still to come. Waiting, that is, the danger will not go away on that day.
One of the changes that Elon Musk bought Twitter in a $44 billion deal on October 28 is that monthly subscriptions can earn a blue certification badge.
Because the man is still under financial pressure from the deal, particularly the $13 billion in debt that must be repaid to investors, he is accelerating the company's revenue growth at a time when it has been declining. Revenue is attributed to advertisers who have stopped promoting the platform.
To get rid of the financial pressure, Musk laid off about 3,700 employees on Twitter on Friday, before saying he was forced to do so because the company was losing about $4 million a day.
Musk and his advisors also discussed different ways to make money from Twitter. Besides the blue check mark, they also talked about the fee for private messages users can send to high-profile users and the ability to charge for certain videos. They also discussed the possibility of restarting the Vine short video app.