After several tests, Elon Musk will relaunch a new paid subscription to Twitter

Elon Musk on Monday launched a new paid Twitter subscription with account authentication, one of his main projects for the platform, after the first attempt was marked by an influx of fake accounts and great confusion.

The company gradually opened up subscriptions during the day.

Main interest for people who agree to pay money: a tick that should confirm the identity of the subscriber, blue for individuals, gold for companies, and next week, gray for institutions.

The first attempt to launch a new subscription plan in early November was accompanied by a flurry of accounts impersonating celebrities or large corporations and mixed messages from management.

Then the project was suspended, then postponed several times.

Twitter has, this time, adopted the conditions for verification, users must in particular have an account for at least 90 days associated with a verified phone number and that is not appears to be “misleading or misleading”.

They must also have been active at least once in the past month and not have changed their profile picture or their Twitter name in the past week.

Users who already have a checkmark can, a priori, keep it without paying, according to the details of the conditions of use published by Twitter.

This subscription will initially be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, for $8 per month, or $11 for Apple device owners.

Twitter has not given an official explanation for this price difference, but Elon Musk has criticized in the past the 30% commission that Apple charges on user spending made through the AppStore.

Dark Strategy

This initiative should allow Twitter, which the multi-entrepreneur bought for 44 billion at the end of October, to diversify its turnover beyond advertisements.

Revenue has indeed fallen of late in recent months as the economy falters, while many advertisers have been burned by Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, fearing their ads will be found with controversial content.

The new boss, who presents himself as a defender of freedom of expression and regularly claims that Twitter has historically been biased in favor of left-wing ideas, has actually significantly reduced the platform’s staff, including responsible for moderation, and allowed the return to the platform of suspended personalities, such as Donald Trump.

She herself posted a series of controversial messages over the weekend, attacking former Twitter security chief Yoel Roth, gender-neutral pronouns, and Joe Biden’s outgoing pandemic adviser Anthony Fauci. .

Elon Musk’s comments eventually even caught the attention of the White House, which on Monday considered them “rebellious and out of touch with reality”, as well as “dangerous”, the immunologist who received many threats from far right and American conspiracy theorists.

Yoel Roth has also, according to the American channel CNN, had to leave his home following attempts to intimidate him after the businessman took the accusations of promoting pedophilia against him.

The world’s richest man, who also heads Tesla and SpaceX, is also trying to attract attention by promoting for ten days what he calls “Twitter files”, internal documents that are supposed to describe questionable- questionable moderation practices.

“I don’t understand what he’s trying to do” with these broad statements, reacted Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies. Maybe it’s a tactic to attract more people and thus sell more subscriptions, he suggests.

But his strategy remains vague, the specialist said.

“Elon Musk wants to be seen as saving democracy, but can he really do it with anti-vaccines” or conspiracy theorists? he wondered.

In any case, he dissolved on Monday night, according to the Washington Post and CNN, the Trust and Security Council, an advisory body made up of experts outside Twitter that helps define the company’s moderation policy. on the blue bird.

Invited to a show stage in San Francisco by comedian Dave Chappelle on Sunday, he was met with a mixture of applause and boisterous boos.

So much heckling “was a first for me in real life (it’s usually on Twitter),” Elon Musk later said in a tweet.

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