By Leah Montebello
Elon Musk is reportedly gearing up to introduce paid verification on Twitter in a bid to drive up revenue.
According to initial reports from The Verge, Twitter is currently planning to charge $19.99 for the new Twitter Blue subscription, adding to the current optional premium offering it has.
According to insiders and internal correspondence seen by The Verge, verified users woulld have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue tick.
The Twitter Blue subscription launched last year as a way to view ad-free articles from some publishers.
“Chief Twit” Musk has made his intentions clear from the start to fully revamp the social media platform.
On Sunday, he tweeted: “The whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
Since completing his $44bn takeover on Friday, the Tesla founder has sacked Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.
Twitter’s 7,500 employees are now reportedly fretting, with suggestions of a massive overhaul of how the company works.
The eccentric billionaire has denied a report that he is planning to cut jobs at Twitter before tomorrow to avoid having to include share grants as part of any payouts.
Commenting on a report from The New York Times, Musk tweeted: “This is false.”
Over the weekend Musk did state that he would form a content moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints” in a bid to ensure posts and accounts are not blocked for political reasons.
But responding to criticism of the moderation council from a Twitter user, Musk said that users may be able to determine the “version” of the site they choose.
“Being able to select which version of Twitter you want is probably better, much as it would be for a movie maturity rating,” he said.
“The rating of the tweet itself could be self-selected, then modified by user feedback.”
Musk has previously described himself as an “absolutist” on free speech and has criticised lifelong bans from the platform. His takeover has fuelled concerns that protections on harmful content will be rolled back.
The post Twitter plans to charge users $20 for blue tick verification as Musk pushes for revenue growth appeared first on CityAM.
