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> premium paid platform for the "intellectual elites"

The idea that the blueticks could be described as "intellectual elites"... Well, I very rarely actually literally laugh out loud at this website, but that did it.

That always _kind of_ was Twitter's positioning, bar the 'paid' bit (Twitter blue, well, existed, and that's about all you could say for it), but it's not something that Musk has exactly been encouraging.

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The ticks are there to show a high confidence that whatever the content is, has been posted by a real person. I got my tick because I seem to have divergent opinions from a lot of people, and that stupid tick makes them engage with my ideas hopefully for the better instead of rejecting them out of hand by passively disagreeing. It hasn't been all that long and it already changed my mind on something.

That stupid blue tick is important to have people engage in discourse, it's healthy for people to talk instead of vilifing anybody not in your bubble.

To think it represents intellectual elites is a mistake and it's missing the point.

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