The Blue Check Rapture is Coming: The Elon Musk Steps to Defend the Spam and False Claims on Twitter

The verification symbol is different from a previous approach to verification in that it only shows accounts with blue tick next to their name. In all those instances, verification was approved by Twitter staff. The new verification process—or lack of it—is likely to make it easier for scammers, cybercriminals, and peddlers of disinformation to hone their craft and appear legitimate.

“The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted on Sunday. Musk engaged in a poll on the subject of how much would be paid to be verified on his platform, after being asked by a member of the billionaire’s inner circle. The majority of responders chose the option of not paying.

Since his takeover began, the platform has been chaotic so it is only appropriate that his first change will scramble the social hierarchy.

The verification system, which expands on check mark options with multiple new colors, is part of the effort by the new owner to grow the business and bolster the bottom line of the company he bought for $44 billion.

Musk, who previously said he wants to “defeat the spam bots,” made the prevalence of spam and fake accounts on Twitter central to his effort to get out of the deal, before reversing course earlier this month and moving forward with the acquisition.

The proposed shakeup has not been received well by the power users on the platform. Author Stephen King, for instance, tweeted that he would be “gone like Enron” rather than pay to be verified. Still, Musk appears undeterred. The Blue Check Rapture is coming.

The blue check system wasn’t a cure-all for fraud, lies, and other misinformation—Twitter’s long history of content moderation problems is well documented, plus it made a number of missteps deciding who and why to verify over the years—but verification did help the platform operate as a “town square” for sharing information. It is because of this that every other big social platform cribbed the blue badges for their own networks. They are at least moderately helpful.

The decision to push back the new feature comes one day after the platform launched an updated version of its iOS app that promises to allow users who pay a monthly subscription fee to get a blue checkmark on their profiles, a feature that CEO Elon Musk has proposed as a way to fight spam on the platform.

Twitter is no place like home: Impersonating a democracy: Sean Musk, Kenya Airways, and their #VoteBlueIn2022 campaign

On Sunday, Musk tweeted that, “Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.” A name change will cause a temporary loss of verified checkmark.

“I am a freedom of speech absolutist and I eat doody for breakfast every day,” Silverman tweeted Saturday. Her account supports Democratic candidates on a regular basis.

Silverman’s account was labeled as “temporarily restricted” Sunday, with a warning that “there has been some unusual activity from this account” shown to visitors before clicking through to the profile. Her account reverted to its normal form, complete with her own name and image.

Friday, the actress changed her name to the CEO of the company. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you. That no longer applies. Good luck out there! She stated that anyone could buy a blue check mark for only $7.99 a month without knowing who they are.

After changing her profile name to Musk, Bertinelli tweeted and retweeted support for several Democratic candidates and hashtags, including “VoteBlueForDemocracy” and “#VoteBlueIn2022.”

Additionally, Musk said Twitter users will no longer receive warning before being suspended. “This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue,” he tweeted.

Musk has shared conspiracy theories about the attack on Pelosi, called Democrats the party of “division& hate”, compared the former CEO of the social media company to Joseph Stalin, and warned that the woke mind virus will destroy civilization.

Sean Murphy tried to book a flight with Kenya Airways between two different countries at the same time. “The information on the booking page was ambiguous,” says Murphy, the cofounder of Web3 company ImpactScope. So he fired off a quick direct message to the verified Kenya Airways account on Twitter, asking it to confirm baggage allowances for the flight. A day later, he sent the company a public shout out, reminding it of the question. The replies began.

When there is no proper way to verify identities, cybercriminals are able to use social media to target unbeknown victims, which will be abused by threat actors in the pursuit of a con.

Twitter Blue: The Relaunch of Musk’s Twitter Strategy to monetize the social media company and Macaulay’s Apple Tax, in Light of Apple’s Tim Cook

The company says the revamped service will cost $8 a month on the web, or $11 a month if purchased through an app on iPhones and iPads, where in-app transactions are processed through the company’s App Store, which generally levies a 30% commission.

The new tiers followed the words of Musk who criticized Apple for its so-called Apple tax, a long-time pain point for app developers who have viewed the fee as excessive and financially damaging to Apple’s rivals. Following a meeting with Tim Cook at the company’s headquarters, Musk claimed his row with Apple was over.

Musk now says there will be three colors for purchase: gold for companies; grey for governments and a blue check for prominent individuals, including celebrities.

Twitter is ready for you to hand over some cash, whether it’s subscribing to the relaunched Twitter Blue service or buying one of the blue bird statues from its San Francisco office. Twitter Blue is one of Elon Musk’s strategies to monetize the social media company and shake up platform dynamics since his April acquisition.

The company has long struggled to grow its service the way larger competitors like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have and, even before Musk took over, the company’s advertising business had been far from robust.

Twitter has not answered questions about whether it still has the resources to take on such a daunting task after laying off more than half of the company’s staff.

“With a reduced workforce it’s not certain if it will be possible to prevent fraudulent activity with their new identity verification methodology,” says Rachel Tobac, the CEO of SocialProof Security. The scammers can quickly determine how to overwhelm or manipulate the identity verification system to get ‘authenticated’ as anentity that they are not.

What Do All Blue Checks Say About Musk’s New Subscription Service Effort? A Step Toward Understanding Its Implications

Esther Crawford is the product head of the subscription service effort and she announced on her verified account that the service will be $8 per month for users who subscribe via the web platform and $11 per month for those who subscribe on the app. The higher price point on the device appears to account for Apple’s 30% app transaction fee, which Musk recently railed against.

Some Twitter users have started to see a new explanatory note when they click on the blue checks of accounts that were verified before Musk’s takeover that reads: “This is a legacy verified account. It might or might not be noteworthy.

The new system was originally supposed to be out at the end of November but was delayed multiple times because of safety concerns.

The gold and gray verification categories seem to aim at addressing some of those concerns, but it’s not clear what a requirement for individuals to pay to be verified would mean.

The blue check is the same for all verified individual humans, according to Musk. “Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org.”

Do you know what you get for that monthly subscription? Are your eyes glazing over trying to figure out what all these different colored check marks mean? Everything you need to know is here.

Twitter Blue – A New Service for Discovering New Techniques in Social Networks and Other Medium-Relational Interests (The Twitter Blue Case Study)

What do you get right now? You instantly get the option to change your Tweets multiple times within a half-hour of posting. While you will need to wait for longer videos, Twitter Blue subscribers can upload video files at 1080p quality. Are you still holding on to that bored ape, crazy kitty, loudmouth larva, or whatever the latest NFT collection is? Show it off as your profile picture with Twitter Blue.

Making aesthetic adjustments to your experience can be done with the upgraded service. Change the appearance of your phone’s icon or change the colors on it. For anyone who bookmarks an overwhelming assortment of Tweets, you can now sort through those bookmarked posts and organize them into private folders.

Some of the accounts have check marks that are gold or gray. According to Twitter, gold is meant to signal an official account from a business and gray is mainly for government accounts.

After everything, are you ever still sure you want to be on Twitter? Anyone wanting something new can mull over the multiple alternative options with WIRED articles that help you get started on Mastodon, discover new servers on Discord, or consider giving LinkedIn a second chance.