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New Twitter accounts will have to wait 90 days before buying a subscription • ZebethMedia

Twitter has published a policy change saying that newly-created Twitter accounts will have to wait 90 days before being allowed to subscribe to the new Twitter Blue plan and get verified. This is likely to avoid impersonation and spam from verified accounts. “Newly created Twitter accounts will not be able to subscribe to Twitter Blue for 90 days. We may also impose waiting periods for new accounts in the future at our discretion without notice,” the company said on its FAQ page about Twitter Blue. Prior to this, the Elon Musk-led company just said that new accounts created after November 9 won’t be able to purchase the $8 Twitter subscription plan. Twitter Blue terms on Nov 10 noting accounts created after Nov 9 can’t sign up for Twitter Blue. Image Credits: Twitter The old terms were published during the rushed rollout of Twitter Blue, which caused havoc and a barrage of verified accounts started impersonating brands, celebrities, and athletes. Because of fake verified accounts tweeting misinformation, shares of companies like Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin took a dip. To avoid impersonation, the company has prohibited verified users from changing their names. Earlier this week, Musk said that paid accounts will lose the verified checkmark until the social network confirms that the new name follows its rules. However, the company hasn’t made any formal policy around that. With new release, changing your verified name will cause loss of checkmark until name is confirmed by Twitter to meet Terms of Service — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022 Twitter is in the soup with the new paid plan. On the one hand, Musk has promised that subscribers will get prominence on the notification tab, replies, and searches — the company briefly moved the verified notification tab’s position to place it before all notifications too. On the other hand, after assessing the initial results from the verification rollout, it clearly has to thwart spam and impersonation to prevent more advertisers from leaving the platform. As a result, Musk paused the rollout of Twitter Blue last week. He also promised to relaunch the relaunched Twitter Blue program on November 29, but in Elonverse things can change rather quickly.

Have you tried turning it off and on again, Elon? • ZebethMedia

A few days ago, new Twitter owner Elon Musk said that the company will try a lot of dumb things in the coming days. And that seems to be the product strategy of the company — even if it causes utter chaos all around. It’s a tough time for anyone keeping tabs on changes at the social network because anything can flip anytime without warning. Blinked a few times? Something has changed. Went to make coffee? A lot has changed. Went to sleep? Welcome to a new world. Earlier this week, Twitter launched its grey-colored official checkmark for notable accounts like companies and politicians. This was meant to be a second layer of identification after Musk declared that everyone paying $8 a month will get the original blue check mark. But within hours of the launch, he “killed it.” On the other hand, the company’s product manager Esther Crawford clarified that the grey “Official” labels are “still going out” as a part of the new Twitter Blue product. As of this morning on Friday, The official check mark is back (kinda) — but to a limited number of accounts. There is no clarity on how this is being rolled out. Beat this plot, Christopher Nolan. Then there is the new $8 Twitter Blue plan, which Musk thinks is the savior of Twitter (and possibly humanity). It began rolling out to iOS users in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. The only feature it currently has is the blue checkmark, and yes, new users can’t sign up for it. After this was rolled out, a bunch of accounts started to troll brands, athletes, and officials making it look like they are tweeting from official accounts. Despite several bans and blocks, many accounts are still spreading misinformation. A lot of these tweets are getting thousands of likes and retweets. Until now, we don’t know of any grave consequences but this can cause a lot of damage. Only if Twitter had strong leaders in security, legal, comms, and trust and safety teams. Twitter has changed its policy about parody accounts saying that they should specify this in both their names and bio to avoid impersonation. Notably, the language used in these policy changes is crude and vague. At the time of writing, Twitter seems to have turned off Twitter Blue subscriptions across the globe. As app researcher Jane Manchun Wong noted, the company is not letting users subscribe to this new plan. This could be a result of a premature rollout in countries like India, and it could also be another “killed it.” Maybe by the time you’re reading this, it might be available again who knows? There is a lot happening on Twitter at breakneck speed. New policy pages are popping up without corresponding features being available on the app. The company is probably rolling out changes to production directly from the development environment. Timelines are breaking. There are tons of bugs on the platform. Spam has increased. Musk has called off remote work and said the company could go bankrupt. Hoards of executives have left. But everything is fine, and Twitter is the most interesting place on earth.

Twitter blocks new accounts from its $8 verified tier after high-profile fakes abound • ZebethMedia

The motto over at Twitter is clearly a throwback ‘move fast and break things’ at the moment under new ruler Elon Musk, and the latest thing to break is the just-introduced $8 monthly Twitter Blue tier, which includes a shiny ‘verified’ checkmark indistinguishable from the ones that Twitter used to hand out selectively to high-profile accounts. The social network updated its Twitter Blue info page to note that any accounts freshly created on or after Wednesday, November 9, will not be able to subscribe for now. I should stress that this is ‘as of this writing,’ since the pace of change is such over at Twitter HQ right now that what may be true as I type these words may not be by the time I add the period to the end of this sentence. That’s because Musk has overtly said the company will be doing “lots of dumb things in coming months” with an attitude of rapid iteration based on results. Twitter Blue terms on Nov 10 noting accounts created after Nov 9 can’t sign up for Twitter Blue. One fresh example is the ‘official’ account label, which was a second checkmark that Twitter was providing to organizations including news outlets, as well as high-profile individuals like politicians and influencers who are often imitated for scamming purposes. That program went live on Wednesday and was already nixed just a few hours later. The block on Blue for new accounts appears to be related to what happened immediately once the subscription actually provided the blue check ‘verification’ that Musk had previously provided: People abused it. A number of fake accounts pretending to be celebrities, brands and otherwise influential people immediately cropped up and made audacious, false claims, including a fake LeBron requesting a trade away from the Lakers, a fake Connor McDavid saying he already had been traded from the Oilers to the Islanders, a fake Nintendo account posting a picture of Mario flipping the bird and much, much more. Stopping new accounts from getting the blue check is a temporary solution to preventing some of this kind of impersonation (thought it doesn’t block legacy accounts from doing so, including the many inactive accounts that are out there ripe for takeover or manipulation) but it’s unclear how the company will prevent this kind of thing longer-term. As with everything that happens with Twitter these days, they’ll probably try a bunch of things in public across the platform at large and seed what sticks.

Twitter safety head suggests further ‘identity verification’ beyond paid verification may later be required • ZebethMedia

Twitter’s head of Safety and Integrity Yoel Roth admitted in a Twitter thread that the company may have to further invest in “identity verification” that goes beyond the paid verification system that will accompany its revamped Twitter Blue subscription. Under Elon Musk, Twitter has rushed to release a new version of its Twitter Blue subscription whose key selling point will be the ability to purchase a verification badge by paying $7.99 per month. This change is meant to make Twitter verification more accessible to users who previously couldn’t get verified under Twitter’s old system, which only doled out the coveted blue-and-white badge to public figures, celebs, politicians, journalists, and other high-profile individuals. Twitter’s prior system vetted who received the checkmark through an internal process that would confirm the person was who they said they were, so other users on Twitter could be assured of that public figure’s identity. Now, Twitter seems to realize that real identity verification — the kind that can’t be bought for $8, that is — actually has its advantages. But it’s unclear where Twitter would draw the line in terms of who would require their identities to be further verified or how that would be accomplished. In a thread where Roth attempted to explain Twitter’s differing policies around parody (which is permitted), and impersonation (which is not), he also detailed how the company would tackle a situation where a number of verified, blue-badged accounts engaged in impersonation. This led to him sharing his thoughts about identity verification on Twitter, as well. Verification! Impersonation! Twitter Blue! There’s a lot going on around identity on Twitter — let’s break down what our policies are, and some of the big questions we still need to answer… — Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 8, 2022 The thread came about because large-scale impersonation is something that recently happened to Elon Musk himself. This week, a number of verified celebrities appropriated Musk’s screen name and profile picture to troll him. Musk responded by announcing a ban on any accounts pretending to be someone else and even booted one of the impersonators — comedian Kathy Griffin — off of Twitter entirely. (She later returned to the platform by using her late mother’s Twitter account.) Roth said that going forward, Twitter will deal with impersonation conducted by verified users as it has in the past — it would suspend those accounts engaging in the practice. When the new Twitter Blue subscription launches publicly, however, impersonation could become more difficult to enforce if there’s an increase in verified users for Twitter to keep its eye on. To address this, Roth said that Twitter will “ramp up proactive review of Blue Verified accounts that show signs of impersonating another user,” and then suspend them, if found. He also called for Twitter users to also report accounts engaged in impersonation. Of course, Roth’s  Trust & Safety team has seen layoffs following Musk’s Twitter takeover, potentially making such enforcement a challenge. While the exec claimed that his team only saw 15% cuts, compared with 50% cuts for Twitter overall, it’s clear that many teams that played vital roles around managing misinformation on the service were impacted – including those that dealt with election integrity and public policy. It’s not understood how well the newly under-staffed teams would be able to keep up if a large number of users decided to engage in impersonation after becoming verified. Because of the potential for abuse, Twitter decided to delay the rollout of the revamped Twitter Blue system until after the U.S. midterms elections on Tuesday, The New York Times reported this weekend and Roth has now confirmed. What’s more, is that Roth seems to admit that simply asking users to pay for their blue badge isn’t a very robust form of identity verification and that Twitter may need to do more in this area in the future. (You know…like it used to, back when verification meant something more than “I have $8!”). Roth explained Twitter’s older system made verification both a signal of authenticity (you are who you say you are) and notability, meaning you’re important in some way. The exec said he supports getting rid of notability and instead focusing on “proof-of-humanness” — something that the $8 paid subscription feed could help with as it could weed out spammers and bad actors who don’t want to pay or go through the fraud checks involved with in-app purchases on the major app stores. However, Roth hinted that paid verification alone cannot work to verify identities entirely, suggesting that Twitter will need to do more work on this front in the future. “Long-term, I think we need to invest more in identity verification as a complement to proof-of-humanness,” wrote Roth. “Paid Verification is a strong (not perfect) signal of humanness, which helps fight bots and spam. But that’s not the same thing as identity verification,” he said. Roth didn’t go into further detail about what Twitter may need to do differently beyond paid verification through Blue to accomplish identity verification. Long-term, I think we need to invest more in identity verification as a complement to proof-of-humanness. Paid Verification is a strong (not perfect) signal of humanness, which helps fight bots and spam. But that’s not the same thing as identity verification. — Yoel Roth (@yoyoel) November 8, 2022 His statement, however, raises questions about what Twitter could have in mind here. Today, a number of social networks have begun to embrace facial recognition and A.I. to verify their users, which has raised privacy concerns. Instagram, for example, uses A.I. to scan “happy birthday” posts to see if a child may have lied about their age at sign-up. Yubo is asking all the users on its platform to verify their age with a facial scan. While those methods are focused on making sure minors haven’t lied about their ages on the platform, they could be put to use for other purposes. Video, in particular, comes in handy for identity verification — even Amazon was

Twitter said to delay verification check mark rollout until after US midterm elections • ZebethMedia

Twitter is reportedly delaying the rollout of verification check marks to subscribers as the social network attempts to steer clear of possible impact to Tuesday’s midterm elections. The Elon Musk-owned social media company had planned to rollout the revamped version of its subscription service, Twitter Blue, on Monday. The firm started testing the new features on Saturday, according to an app update note. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The reported move to delay the rollout of verification badges comes just days before the U.S. midterm elections, with polls closing on November 8. The New York Times reports that the move was aimed at limiting the potential fallout of verified users impersonating political or government figures, such as President Biden, or news outlets claiming false results that may discourage others from voting. Jen Easterly, the director of CISA, the U.S. government agency tasked with overseeing election security and protecting voting infrastructure, said last week that the agency it found “no information credible or specific about efforts to disrupt or compromise,” but warned of the ongoing risks that disinformation campaigns sown by foreign actors aimed at undermining confidence in the elections system. Security experts like Chris Krebs, the former CISA director who was fired by President Trump for refuting false claims of election fraud, warned that Twitter’s new verification rules would be a “major risk” ahead of the midterm elections. At the time of writing, several verified users were impersonating Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, despite the risk of having their accounts suspended for impersonation. The revamped Twitter Blue, which will cost $7.99 a month in the U.S., includes a range of new features including the coveted blue check mark to anyone who subscribes as well as cuts down the number of ads served to them on the platform. Musk is betting on turning the subscription service into a major revenue source for Twitter, which he acquired last month for $44 billion. Musk financed $13 billion for the purchase from banks and needs to pay more than $1 billion a year in interest payments. The company began cutting costs earlier this week, laying off roughly half its workforce, or about 3,700 jobs. In a series of tweets earlier this weekend, Musk claimed the company’s revamped Twitter Blue “can beat” the ad-revenue YouTube offers to creators, and that he was also working on fixing the search functionality on Twitter. Twitter will soon allow users to attach long-form texts to tweets, he said. Twitter plans to roll out the revamped Twitter Blue to subscribers in many markets in the coming months. In response to a tweet, Musk said he is hopeful that Twitter Blue will roll out to users in India “in less than a month.”

Elon Musk’s Twitter Blue subscription with verification may launch in India in ‘less than a month’ • ZebethMedia

Twitter may extend its subscription service to India in “less than a month,” its owner and chief executive Elon Musk said, offering a glimpse at just how aggressively he plans to roll out Twitter Blue to the larger world. Twitter launched Twitter Blue in four markets — US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — last year. The Elon Musk-owned firm plans to launch a revamped version of the subscription service in those four markets on Monday. Musk has ramped up Twitter Blue’s offerings, promising a verified checkmark to anyone who subscribes, among other features, including long form video content and having to sift through fewer ads. Those who already have the verified checkmark will need to subscribe to Twitter Blue over the coming months to retain it, Musk said in another tweet. He has previously said that Twitter Blue, which is priced at $7.99 a month in the U.S., will be more affordable in some countries to account for local purchase parity. “Power to the people,” Twitter’s iOS app update note said in anticipation of Monday rollout. “Your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.” Musk is betting on turning the subscription service into a major revenue driver for Twitter, which he acquired last month for $44 billion — $13 billion of which he lent from banks. Musk needs to pay more than $1 billion a year in interest payments. The company this week laid off roughly half the company’s workforce, or about 3,700 jobs. In a series of tweets over the weekend, Musk offered a few more updates on Twitter Blue. He claimed the company “can beat” YouTube’s ad-revenue split to creators, and that fixing the search functionality on Twitter “is a high priority” for the firm. Twitter will soon allow users to attach long-form texts to tweets, he said. Many users who have wished to post longer texts have over the years posted screenshots of texts written on a note app. Musk said the new revamp will end such “absurdity.”

Twitter begins rolling out $7.99 Twitter Blue plan with verification, fewer ads • ZebethMedia

Just days after newly minted Twitter CEO Elon Musk floated changes to Twitter’s system for verifying user accounts, including charging $8 per month for the privilege, Twitter appears to have begun rolling out a new tier of Twitter Blue, its premium subscription service, that reflects some of the changes that Musk has proposed. According to an in-app iOS notification viewed by ZebethMedia, the upgraded Twitter Blue, starting at $7.99 per month, will add the blue verification checkmark previously reserved for accounts that applied through Twitter’s free verification process. Other benefits include “half the ads” seen by non-paying Twitter users as well as ostensibly “twice as relevant” ads, and the ability to post longer videos to Twitter (although it’s not clear just how long; the notification doesn’t specify). Image Credits: ZebethMedia The new, pricier Twitter Blue will also offer priority ranking for “quality content,” promising to boost subscribers’ visibility in replies, mentions and search. Twitter’s making the claim that this will help “lower the visibility of scams, spam and bots,” but time will time will tell whether that’s truly the case. Image Credits: ZebethMedia Musk earlier claimed that Twitter, which recently ended support for ad-free articles offered under Blue, would create a new program for bypassing paywalls for publishers willing to work with the company. But if he intends to follow through with the proposal, the program doesn’t appear to have made it into the new Blue — at least not at launch. Available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. on iOS to start, the new Twitter Blue arrives after mass layoffs at Twitter affecting roughly half of the company’s staff, including employees on key human rights, accessibility, AI ethics and curation teams. Musk has claimed that the cuts — along with the introduction of new paid features — are necessary to bring Twitter to profitability, as the company faces an estimated $1 billion a year in interest payments on $13 billion in debt. It’s likely to be an uphill battle. Data from analytics firm Sensor Tower suggests that Twitter’s app has generated only $6.4 million in in-app purchases to date, with Blue being the top purchase. Musk’s management of Twitter doesn’t appear to have instilled much confidence in major advertisers, however, many of whom have paused campaigns on the platform. In a tweet on Friday, Musk blamed a “massive drop” in Twitter revenue on “activist groups pressuring advertisers,” likely referring to an open letter sent Tuesday by civil society organizations urging Twitter advertisers to suspend their ads if Musk didn’t commit to enforcing safety standards and community guidelines.

Elon Musk floats $8 Twitter subscription that includes verification, long-form video and audio posting and fewer ads • ZebethMedia

After much uncertainty around Twitter Blue’s revamp, Elon Musk laid out the company’s approach. He said that the new paid plan will cost $8 per month — something that he mentioned in a reply to Stephen King’s tweet. Plus, the price will be adjusted according to purchasing power parity of the company, hinting towards a global launch of Twitter Blue. Musk’s tweet also says that the social network’s current verification system is akin to a “lords & peasants” system. His tweet about the new paid plan indicated offering verification to subscribers. Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022 Musk also noted some of the features that will roll out with this new plan including fewer ads, priority in replies (something which verified handles get through the “Verified” notification channel) mentions and search, and the ability post longer videos than the current limit of 2 minutes 20 seconds You will also get:– Priority in replies, mentions & search, which is essential to defeat spam/scam– Ability to post long video & audio– Half as many ads — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022 Musk has a tendency of changing his mind quickly, so we should take this announcement with a grain of salt. These might not be the final set of features when Twitter rolls out its new subscription plan. Earlier this week, reports noted that Musk and Twitter are revamping the verification process, and it might involve a fee as high as $20 per month. However, the billionaire has seemed to settle on the $8 per month pricing for now. The reports also noted that the current set of verified users will lose their blue checkmark if they don’t pay for the new paid plan. Musk hasn’t mentioned any such measure in the new Twitter thread about the subscription plan. Earlier today, ZebethMedia reported that Twitter is ending support for ad-free articles offered under its Twitter Blue program. The company sent an email to participating publisher partners about the program’s end. While Twitter is ending payments and partnerships with the current set of publishers, Musk said that it will create a new program for bypassing paywalls for publishers willing to work with the company. He also mentioned that the subscription revenue stream will help Twitter in rewarding content creators — but didn’t specify how. This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022   (Story is developing)

Twitter to end ad-free news articles as part of its revamp of the Twitter Blue subscription • ZebethMedia

It’s public knowledge now that one of the first things Elon Musk is concentrating on after taking over Twitter is revamping the Twitter Blue program. While a lot of attention has been around a potential verification feature being included in the paid program, the company is also removing some of the existing features like publisher partnerships, according to an email received by one of the partners. According to 9to5Mac, which was one of the partners in the program, the company sent an email to all publishers on October 31 notifying them that the Twitter Blue partnership is ending. The program allowed paid users to see ad-free articles on participating publications, and the social network would pay publishers an equivalent amount of ad revenue earned from one view. It had more than 350 publishers on board including the likes of The Washington Post, L.A. Times, Reuters, and The Atlantic. “In the coming weeks, we’ll be launching an update to Twitter Blue. In the course of this work, we have made the decision to discontinue Ad-free Articles, effective as of the close of business today, October 31, 2022. This hard decision will allow us to focus our resources on adding additional value for our members. Expect to hear more from us soon,” the email read. “Starting tomorrow, we will stop displaying the “Twitter Blue Publisher” label on any Tweets containing your articles. We will no longer be sending a Twitter Blue token when people on Twitter access articles from your properties. This will prevent the ad-free experience on your site from loading.” Currently, some users can still see labels accompanying this article, but Twitter will gradually stop showing them. Publishers, meanwhile, were informed they could remove any Twitter Blue code from their website and were told they would only be able to access the Twitter Blue Publisher portal through the end of November. All payouts will continue on the regular schedule until the program, which the email described as a “test,” is shut down. Image Credits: ZebethMedia Twitter didn’t immediately comment on the development. The feature’s closure is not only abrupt, it also squanders Twitter’s investment in the ad-free reading experience. The company acquired the news reading service Scroll in May 2021, with the goal of making it a part of its own subscription offering. It later shut down Scroll in the fall of last year as it moved the service’s feature set into Twitter Blue. The service itself may not have been profitable, as it would redirect a portion of subscription revenue to support the publishers that readers engaged with. This could cut into Twitter’s bottom line for a subscription that, in and of itself, wasn’t doing very well. According to new data from app intelligence provider Sensor Tower, Twitter’s app had only generated $6.4 million in consumer spending to date, with Blue as the top in-app purchase. That’s not a lot considering the subscription has been available since last year and Twitter has some 238 million monetizable daily active users. Twitter Blue is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In addition to ad-free news, it has offered features like a button to edit tweets within a 30-minute timeframe, a bookmarks folder, custom icons and navigation, and early access to experimental features. Reports have suggested that Musk could price the new Twitter Blue at $20 per month — but in a reply to writer Stephen King, he suggested $8 per month. It’s clear there’s no decision yet on pricing. According to CNBC, the Tesla and SpaceX exec has set very aggressive deadlines for the Twitter Blue revamp with some employees having to work in 12-hour shifts. Additional reporting: Sarah Perez

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