New Twitter accounts won’t be able to buy Twitter Blue for 90 days when it relaunches
New Twitter accounts won’t be able to buy Twitter Blue for 90 days when it relaunches
Yet more changes have been announced for Twitter's $8 per month subscription service
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Blue tick delay
🙄 Musk has announced another change to Twitter’s blue tick verification system
⛔ When Twitter Blue relaunches, new users won’t be able to subscribe right away
🧌 It’s the latest strategy to combat trolls capitalizing on the verification system
📅 Twitter Blue is expected to relaunch at the end of November
Twitter won’t grant paid-for verification to accounts that are less than three months old when its premium Twitter Blue subscription service relaunches at the end of the month.
Following his takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk revamped Twitter Blue into a subscription platform that gives any user blue tick verification for a monthly $8 fee. The system soon caused problems, as anonymous users began impersonating public figures, and was quickly shut down. But not before a second check mark was introduced in an attempt to distinguish official accounts from those who simply bought their way into verification.
Musk has since announced his plans to push back the full launch of Twitter Blue to November 29 to “make sure that it is rock solid”. As the Twitter Blue support page now reads, that involves tweaking who can access the verification system.
“Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days,” reads the support page. “We may also impose waiting periods for new accounts in the future [at] our discretion without notice.”
The threshold will go some way to alleviating the proliferation of scam and troll accounts that surfaced when Twitter Blue went live. Users will no longer be able to instantly start impersonating brands and public figures by creating a throwaway account and shelling out $8, potentially putting off some users.
But the barrier isn’t an insurmountable one and doesn’t fix the problem wholesale. An industrious prankster could quite easily create an account (or several) months in advance, wait out the necessary 90-day delay, and then begin grifting.
That Twitter has already laid out its privilege to impose additional waiting periods at its own discretion suggests more stringent requirements may be coming down the line. Elon Musk is already worried about bankruptcy and laid off half the company’s workforce earlier this month, so will likely be keen to shore up the support and trust of advertisers. The best way of doing that is probably by stopping trolls from tanking their stocks.
Musk has also said verified users will lose their blue tick if they change their names after the Twitter Blue relaunch. Combine that with the new suspension policies he rolled out to stop users ridiculing him on his own social media platform, and Twitter Blue isn’t shaping up to be the easy money-maker Musk thought it would be.
Of course, if you’re desperate for a blue tick but can’t wait 90 days, you could always buy a pack of unofficial blue tick stickers to slap wherever you want.