Twitter to relaunch premium service as part of revamp: Musk
SAN FRANCISCO: Elon Musk said on Friday that Twiter plans to relaunch its premium service that will offer different coloured check marks to accounts next week, in a fresh move to revamp the service ater a previous atempt backfired.
It’s the latest change to the social media plaform that the billionaire Tesla CEO bought last month for $44 billion, coming a day ater Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts and causing yet more uncertainty for users.
Twiter previously suspended the premium service, which under Musk granted blue-check labels to anyone paying $8 a month, because of a wave of imposter accounts.
Musk alloted colours for the categories — gold for companies, grey for governments and a blue check for individuals including celebrities.
The revamped $8-per-month service will allow individuals to have a smaller, secondary logo of their organisations if verified by them, he said in another tweet on Friday. “Longer explanation next week.” Originally, the blue check was given to government entities, corporations, celebrities and journalists verified by the plaform to prevent impersonation.
“All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates,” he said, adding it was “Painful, but necessary” and promising a “longer explanation” next week. He said the service was “tentatively launching” on Dec.2.
On Thursday, Musk said many previously suspended Twiter accounts would be allowed back on the plaform ater a landslide of users responding to an informal poll by the new owner voted in favour of the move.
The announcement comes as Musk faces pushback that his criteria for content moderation is subject to his personal whim, with reinstatements decided for certain accounts and not others.
Musk tweeted that “amnesty” for previously suspended Twiter accounts would begin “next week,” ater the majority of respondents on a 24-hour poll he had posted voted in favour of the move.
“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week,” Twiter’s new owner said, responding to his own post asking, “Should Twiter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?”
The billionaire’s announcement came ater he asked in a poll posted to his timeline to vote on reinstatements for accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.” The yes vote was 72%.
“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”
Of3.16millionrespondentstomusk’swednesday poll question, 72.4 per cent said Twiter should allow suspended accounts back on Twiter as long as they have not broken laws or engaged in “egregious spam,” Musk posted.
It was the same type of “yes/no” informal poll of Twiter users that Musk devised to decide in favor of reinstating former president Donald Trump on the plaform.
Trump’s Twiter account was reinstated last Saturday ater a narrow majority of respondents supported the move.
Polls on Twiter are open to all users and are unscientific and potentially targeted by fake accounts and bots.
Moreover, while Musk has 118 million followers, many of Twiter’s 450 million monthly active users might never have seen the poll question.
A blanket amnesty for suspended accounts could potentially alarm government authorities that are keeping a close look at Musk’s handling of hateful speech since he bought the influential plaform for $44 billion.
It could also spook Apple and Google, tech titans that have the power to ban Twiter from their mobile app stores over content concerns.
Trump was banned from the plaform early last year for his role in the January 6 atack on the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
‘NO MERCY:’ Musk’s reinstatement of Trump followed that of other banned accounts including a conservative parody site and a psychologist who had violated Twiter’s rules on language identifying transgender people.
The CEO of Tesla and Spacex has said that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones will not be returning to Twiter and will remain banned from the plaform.
Musk on Sunday said he had “no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame” due to his own experience with the death of his first child.
Jones has been ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for his lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people, mostly children.
Musk, who closed his buyout of Twiter in late October, did not make clear whether the bans to be lited by the poll were permanent suspensions or temporary ones.
The future of content moderation on Twiter has become an urgent concern, with major advertisers keeping away from the site ater a failed relaunch earlier this month saw a proliferation of fake accounts, causing embarrassment.