Twitter launches blue check for $7.99 monthly fee | Hacker News Reader

Twitter launches blue check for $7.99 monthly fee

apnews.com

40 pointsahstilde95 comments

Does this mean the blue check mark no longer implies that the user is who they pretend they are? Anyone can pretend to be any celebrity or politician on Twitter and there is no way to tell which of the dozens of people who pretend to be Famous Person X is actually that person? Or is there still some form of real name policy and identity verification in place?

Which is funny because the blue check mark was to help curb the fake/scams/impersonation/... issue, it was in twitter interest not in the blue-ed users'.

Not only making the user paying for that is weird, but then removing the whole pretense of verification on top of it is pretty much recreating an issue Twitter had fought against and almost got under some sort of control (not the bot in general, but the mass scale impersonation). The cherry on the cake being that he wants those paying users to have "less" ads instead of none.

They wanted to create a "premium users" group but somehow confusingly mixed it with their verified users group, while removing the verified part. Might make more money, but it will definitely decrease quality of twitter.

It was already a "premium users" group -- once you are verified you get a slew of additional UI features to filter out the unchecked masses.

You're right, I meant premium as in paying for extra services.

The article mentions verification extensively, so I imagine that there's going to be some level of verification involved. Whether the verification system would have issues like stripe.ian.sh[1], I have no idea.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190606021548/https://stripe.ia...

There is absolutely zero verification now and hundreds of people have bought the blue check and named their account things like Elon Musk. Some of them have been banned after reports but there's like 14 people left doing moderation so god speed to that team.

He said twitter is garbage bc all the bots and crypto is garbage bc it's only for scams. Now the guy owns Twitter (by force) and pumps'n'dumps crypto. Integrity at its best.

There have been blue check-marked fake Elon Musks even before the rollout. The blue check was hard to get but it did never really help to ensure authenticity.

Yeah I got this impression too. Depends how they will run the verification department. Given their recent cut backs it will be interesting anyway.

The real concern seems to be if the blue tick will actually hold any value anymore. To give a gaming analogy it's become pay to win.

Does it? I didn't see it in my reading.

> Musk tweeted Saturday in response to a question about the risk of impostors impersonating verified profiles — such as politicians and election officials — that “Twitter will suspend the account attempting impersonation and keep the money!”

To me, this sounds like a reactive approach. Whereas previous verification was proactive prevention.

Anyone has been able to apply for verification[0] since 2016, I think Musk is just paywalling the feature. I haven't seen it officially said anywhere that the subscription means you won't be checked for impersonation unless I've missed something.

[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/07/19...

Worth pointing out is that although anyone can apply, Twitter has been very selective regarding approval and it's been more of a "Twitter approves of your content" rather than them verifying your identity.

For example: @disclosetv, they have 1M followers, tonnes of articles / media about them, public org and related paperwork, yet they have been rejected 10+ times (IIRC). They mainly repost/cover news that isn't widely covered in MSM/social media.

Meanwhile, random Buzzfeed contributor #9432, 40-view political Twitch streamer #347, satire-account pretending to be a crazy right-winger #12..

When they started removing checkmarks from accounts for unapproved behavior, it stopped being about verification and started being about Twitter's endorsement of the account.

That was a huge unforced error, and its eventually led to this.

However, I think the right thing to do now is to remove the checkmark entirely and not claim Blue accounts are verified if they are in fact not verified.

Musk seems to be compounding a new error on top of the old errors.

Seems like he's making it more of a "verified human" mark as a bot-farm is not going to pay for 1000 marks that can get banned. Not to mention backend protections such as 1 mark per creditcard, or checking the name of the holder against the account etc. might be somewhat effective at reducing spam..

Boy was I wrong here

That's what gets me about this. Launching a subscription system makes sense, but discontinuing the verification system and repurposing it as a subscription system makes no sense.

And I thought we all made fun of "the blue checks" bc it implies they think theyre important.

Do you know where it is explicitly stated that there is _no_ verification?

This is a misunderstanding. The public figure verification system isn't being discontinued, it's being shifted over to a secondary tag that says "Public Figure" or something. Like what you see with the "Russia state-affiliated media" tag some people have.

Exactly, the lords stay lords, the peasants stay peasants and for most of us nothing changes. For the lords it'll get more complicated though because the tag system will signify a transition from a two-class society to a multi-kaste system.

Musk is saying that attempts to impersonate will get an account suspended and that he’ll keep the money. This will be the disincentive. I guess we’ll see.

I'm sure the moderation team will be right on top of that...

so.. a political party can create a blue tick fake account right before an election, get misinformation reported, all for $8? bargain.

Are you suggesting that mainstream media would use a twitter account with no former activity and no followers as a source for a news article?

Sounds about right

The verification system didn't prevent that anyway. In fact, there's a verified blue check account right now under Elon's latest tweet impersonating Elon:

https://twitter.com/RodArdehali/status/1589022536913797120

It's long been common to see these.

Now that it'll cost $8, the account would be suspended and Twitter keeps the $8.

I’ve noticed that since the 8 dollar checkmarks rolled out today a bunch of people have paid for it and then used it to impersonate Elon. That person you linked might not have been verified beforehand and just bought it today.

I tried to look for their past tweets on the internet archive but didn’t find anything. So I can’t say for sure if they were verified beforehand or not.

I can say fore sure that there were verified fake Elon Musks before the rollout.

For example

https://twitter.com/iamsimonyoung?s=21&t=bk20O5m6wZsdz0lQ9AT...

was posting as Elon Musk at least until 20221102. There was at least one other Elon Musk that was regularly spilled into my timeline, sometimes right before or after the real Elon. These accounts had also the same profile picture. It took me a while to realize that some of these posts are satire. Pretty much the scenario the blue checkmark was supposed to prevent.

I looked into it more and it seems I might be wrong about the rollout. It looks like iOS rolled out the new subscription, but I didn't see if they actually added checkmarks yet. I saw a new story saying checkmarks wouldn't be rolled out until after the election. So, the original commenter might have been right that there were musk impersonators before paid checkmarks became a thing.

They said that they are going to have a separate mark for "notable people" to be able to determine real people from fakes (regardless if they pay)

They are basically shifting the meaning of the blue checkmark and trying to use it more as a bot filter rather than identity verification.

Yes. It's obviously a silly approach that doesn't stand 5 minutes consideration as a business plan. People went to twitter to be outraged, but some went there because they could follow experts in fields, journalists, scientists, writers. They often had blue checks to verify them. Now, anyone can get a blue check. So the blue check is worthless! It weakens the core value of twitter. Will millions of randos pay twitter $8 a month to get a blue check? Will people who valued blue checks drop twitter? Both of these things reduce the future value of going to twitter.

Making blue check a paid cost is like an anti-flywheel plan. Jeff Bezos should have rejected this at the sitdown meeting. When fake Elon Musk and fake Trump and fake Obama start posting on twitter, it won't make people want to go there, will it?

The blue checkmark was worthless before, because:

1. It did not prevent impostors and fake accounts anyway, see my other comment[1] for an example. Others have posted more examples in this thread as well.

2. It was primarily available to celebrities and media personalities. Real experts in fields, journalists, scientists, writers had a hard time getting it if they were not established media personalities already.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33490042

Really? It's not say whoever you want to be and get a blue check mark of authenticity for $8/month. That'd be just dumb. Of course there is some verification...

It's not done or available.

https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1588982930399170561

https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/158896936197674188...

Is calling a production release "shipping" a thing now?

What do you mean by "now"? It's been the case for 15 years at least (I didn't code before that).

You're making it seem like "releasing" is more accurately describing what happens when a feature is deployed in production than "shipping" but it's not the case.

Yes? Since at least the 90s.

I could see it in the 90s since things were actually mailed. Perhaps I have a mental block picturing the rolling release cycle of an internet app as shipping.

It is, however, Saturday afternoon in California.

"Yes, Elon, the full self verifying feature was finished before your deadline."

> The team failed to ship by that original one week deadline (and a good part of them got fired, as promised).

Assuming that's true, good luck retaining a single developer who's talented enough to get a less crazy job at any number of companies.

Rumor was part of the firing criteria was LoC written... So, yeah, twitter is in a real bad state.

Esther's banner image is hilarious:

>Be Bold. Get back up. Believe in yourself.

All your buddies got laid off and you're working impossible deadlines? Looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays! Really giving Mike Judge a run for his money right there.

The picture of them sleeping in an office on Nov 2, yesh. Like, I get it, you maybe don't want to/can't lose your job but at what point do you retain some dignity and quit?

Soon, soon.

But can Teslas self drive yet?

https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/class-action-suit-tesla/

According to some random dude on the internet, the -$4M is mostly Elons interest on his loan, and not the actual Twitter operating loss. Can someone check the math on this?

https://ioc.exchange/@alaric/109288546893776528

(Yes, that is a Mastodon link)

the astroturfing of whatever this site is has been pretty cringe

browsing their feed it feels like a bunch of legitimately new users (which sure, can look cringe if they post without understanding the norms). what astroturfing are you seeing?

According to [0] Elon's debt that he's brought to the table alone is costing approximately $1 billion/year, which is $2.7 million/day... So I guess that's most of it.

https://qz.com/here-s-how-many-blue-checks-elon-musk-would-n...

They were running a 500 million dollar a year loss before Elon bought so 1.5 million a day roughly. Then 2 mil for debt and half a mil in advertising loss I would guess

See the debt commitment letter (search for "The interest rates under the Bank Facilities"):

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22128214/exhibit-2-to...

Rough math for $13B at a SOFR of 3% plus 4.5% and you get a nice billion a year of interest, some $2.7M a day.

Not sure, in 2020 they were losing over $3M a day with an annual loss of $1,136,000,000, but I read they reduced their losses in 2021. Haven't seen any data for 2022.

I would be pretty happy if you could only post if you paid the $8/mo, the Jaron Lanier vision of a fair and sustainable social media app that charges its users for the service instead of creating the illusion of free through subtle long term ad-based opinion shifting.

Fewer bots, less brigading, ideally no ads, less spam, etc. if done right and thoughtfully.

Sounds like a much more enjoyable Twitter. I would be perfectly happy with paying that, even just to support the business model.

Considering Twitters global status $8/mo to post would kill it outside more wealthy countries basically instantly.

If I recall correctly, Musk mentioned it would be adjusted to purchasing power parity.

Metafilter has been doing something not too dissimilar for a long time - $5 one-time signup fee. I've never used it but I'm sure some people here have, and I'd be interested to hear what it's like in practice.

Somethingawful was $10 to be able to post on the forums at least as far back as the mid aughts (when I became a "goon"). I don't know if that goes all the way back to 1999, but it's not exactly a new model.

It's a solid model. At least in the recent few years the feeling of an intentionally closed community of people who have skin in the game raised the quality of conversations. Act like a jackass? Great, get a ban and pay another $10, feed Lowtax (RIP).

So only ppl with money can tweet? Thats like cash bail.

It's a business, it can do what makes the most sense for it. Only people with money can buy cars, only people with money can go to concerts, only people with money can eat at restaurants. Paying for things is a surprisingly popular model.

There's an argument that if you really wanted an authentic digital public square, that protected your free speech rights, it should be operated by the government. Don't want to be at the mercy of advertisers? Let taxes pay for it. It could be like public access TV. Hell, here's a money making idea for ol Musky: Build a white-labelled version of twitter and lease it to governments.

I thought once you have a blue check mark you get to filter out all non-blues, no?

Wasn't this app.net?

If everything is highlighted, nothing is highlighted. Musk is failing at basic scarcity economics thinking this is what will make Twitter leap into the black.

No, it just pegs down the elite blue check status. You still need to provide a credit card as a loose proxy for ID check.

I am actually quite optimistic. Let the best ideas win. The blue check elitism is coming to an end.

Those who are saying this place is turning into 4chan are not saying it in a good faith, it is just ideological opposition of ideas they don't like. Twitter will be very different than 4chan.

"blue check elitism"?

No one cares about blue checks

Then why does the press have it? It establishes authority and special status on Twitter.

Why does it exist in the first place if "no one cares about it?"

> Why does it exist in the first place if "no one cares about it?"

Lots of features exist that no one cares about. You seem to be implying UX folks always get it right.

Long time but casual Twitter user here. I've never paid attention to the blue check. Anecdotal, but yeah.

Same experience as you, but there is a whole another Twitter checkmark market out there for people who want status: https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1589016308968194049

That's a pretty bold claim that I'd have to see evidence to believe.

I do get your point though: it's quite probable that some users are very interested in the feature even if some or many average users ignore it.

Disposable credit cards/visa gift card(s) exist...

Yea but a lot more difficult than running 10k bots. That's why I said "a loose proxy".

What percentage of Twitter users are saying it's turning into 4chan? A handful of users arguing in bad faith isn't worth pointing out, so the numbers are important.

This is hilarious. Musk forked over billions in excess value to Twitter shareholders and millions to executives with sweet exit packages.

I'm just guessing that Twitter users are going to say "thanks nah" to paying his bill for being impulsive and forced into honoring his poorly written purchase contract.

I also think it's idealistic in the extreme to think that users or advertisers want free speech.

Some people are reporting that it is not working https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1588981510916276224 https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1588966359157075969

I guess that means Musk is going to fire some more people.

It’s Twitter Blue Beta!

It’ll be ready in 3 months maybe, 6 months definitely. For now, only some people with a certain safety score can testdrive it.

The blue check doesn't make sense to me.

There's tens of thousands of James Smiths in the US. Is James Smith #2825 the "real" one? Anyone with that name is technically the verified one. That's who they are.

If it's meant for public figures then why do a bunch of non-famous people in tech have blue checkmarks, especially if they have a very uncommon name?

It has been amusing and edifying to watch people with huge Twitter followings who seem to spend every waking moment on that site making an enormous fuss about being asked to pay for it.

"I Just Blue Myself!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GYtgFdXCGE

There's gotta be a better way to say that.

> But Twitter employee Esther Crawford tweeted Saturday that the “new Blue isn’t live yet — the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time.”

Looks like it hasn't launched yet.

If it's only going to be available (at least initially) via the iOS app, does this mean Apple will be taking a slice of the money for in-app purchasing, or is subscription now exempt from that?

Hopefully teams working on this will get some good sleep now

So he would need 15,000,000 blue checkmarks just to pay off the running debts. But perhaps there are that many Twitter addicts.

Let me guess next article: And you can only pay via [...dude buys buncha Doge again...] Dogecoin!

Have they launched it? My Twitter Blue thing still says $4.99. How do I pay for this?

I believe it's only available via the iOS app for now.

And “available” is putting it strongly

Thank you. Getting it.

EDIT: sadly not available in app for me either. Only the $4.99

Ad block the blue check. It is meaningless noise now.

I do not think it gave me utility prior. Did it hold a meaning for you?

Occasionally, for certain types of personalities, to make it faster to check whether it was a parody account.

The late stage capitalist has entered the building.

An interesting side effect of this will be identity verification via the existing KYC in payment networks. Given twitters known bot problem, the number of bluechecks will likely be muuuuch lower as real people start to pay for them, and the real people behind the identities have to pay for them instead of their PR staff running them, but this in turn will make them more valuable and meaningful.

I might have been less aggressive about the whole thing, but there is likely a future product for arbitrary affinity groups where you can create your own hierarchy of checks for your followers, where one could become a gold, silver, bronze (but likely driven by emojii) follower of some e-celeb, where the cred symbol means something in the local personality fanclub/cult. The nested version of these could become a kind of federated status between affinity groups, where one could display their affinities to selected networks, etc. I could snark all day about blue checks, but their status was the artifact of a time that has passed. In the words of Auden these handsome profiles, "own a world that has had its day."

> An interesting side effect of this will be identity verification via the existing KYC in payment networks.

What identity verification? Billing a credit card doesn't usually involve sending or checking a name.

Misspell your name next time you pay for something via credit card. The results may surprise.

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