As Elon Muskâs second week running Twitter comes to a close, the social network is tilting toward outright anarchy.
The most visible problem arose from Muskâs harebrained idea of selling verification badges for $8 a month through the premium subscription Twitter Blue â without a mechanism for confirming the userâs identity. For years, you could trust that a blue check next to, for example, the name âRudy W. Giulianiâ indicated that the account was controlled by the former mayor of New York. With Muskâs version of Twitter Blue, for a quite reasonable price, anybody can log on as the ârealâ Giuliani and tweet stuff like âI shiddedâ until theyâre suspended.
Itâs no wonder that the program lasted less than three days before Twitter abruptly reversed course (once again) Friday morning, pausing the paid verification program. The day before, the company had quickly backtracked on their abrupt cancellation of a second, short-lived âOfficialâ check mark label, hoping to thwart further pranks. But with the rules shifting so rapidly from hour to hour, opportunities for mischief abound.
Even as internal reports say the company is foundering, Musk continues to tweet positively about Twitterâs usage rate, and says the check mark system âneeds some tweaks, but overall proceeding well.â In an another effort to stem the tide of deceptive and joke accounts, Musk â who in October celebrated his purchase of Twitter by tweeting that comedy was now âlegalâ on the platform â announced that any parody feed without the word âparodyâ in the name would be in violation of policy.Â