Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, announced Tuesday that the company will charge $8 a month for its blue checkmark service, as it seeks to increase subscriptions and make the social network less dependent on ads.
“Power to the people! Blue for $8 per month,” Musk wrote in a tweet, referring to the blue verification mark that appears near the verified accounts, explaining that the new plan would overturn the “current system of masters and peasants” and create a new source of revenue for the platform.
In his tweet on the platform, Musk described the current Twitter system – the masters/villagers – that distinguishes the owners of the blue tick from others as “nonsense”.
He explained that the fee for the blue mark will differ from one country to another. He stated that those who pay $8 will have priority in many of the platform’s features and will be able to share longer videos and voice messages, and they will see 50% fewer ads.
Musk also announced the opening of the door to financial rewards for content owners on the Twitter platform, and turning it into a source of income for content creators. “This will also give Twitter a source of income to reward content creators,” he tweeted.
The authentication privileges, currently available for $5 a month, allow users to edit their tweets.
Currently, only certain accounts can request authentication, including governments, companies, media, political, cultural, and sports figures, and these accounts can lose their blue badge if they don’t respect the platform’s rules.
The American billionaire, head of electric car companies “Tesla” and “SpaceX” for commercial space rockets, completed the acquisition of Twitter for $ 44 billion, and on Monday announced his assumption of the position of CEO of the social network, days after his dismissal of former President Barack Agrawal and many other officials.
On the same day, Musk announced that the social media company would form a new board to monitor content, without providing many details, and asked engineers to work tirelessly on this comprehensive overhaul of the system.
