Ghanaian reggae dancehall recording artist, Epixode, has said also added his voice to the Twitter verification badge brouhaha.
According to him, his refusal to pay the $8 charge for his verification badge on Twitter doesn’t make him a stingy celebrity.
Epixode stated that he will rather gather the $8 charges and use it to fund a music video at the end of the year.
“Well I don’t think refusing to pay 8 dollars for Twitter blue tick verification means I’m stingy but that’s how some people may see it.
“But if you put together a lot of the payments of the 8 dollars for about a year, that can equally shoot a music video for your next project,” Epixode said on Property FM in Cape Coast.
He continued “Some people might look at this from a different perspective, some might say they have a lot of money so paying 8 dollars isn’t meant anything at all”.
Speaking to Amansan Krakye, the ‘Atia’ hitmaker said getting a blue badge verification on Twitter doesn’t come with any exclusive benefits for celebrities.
He added “If the owner of the app says we should pay for the blue badge and if it comes with exclusive benefits then I know paying will help me reach millions of people when I release something. So that one is beneficial but when I’m paying and it’s the same normal stuff and anybody else who isn’t a celebrity can equally pay and get a blue badge then I don’t think it’s important like that,” he ended.
The staff at Tumblr have some thoughts about Twitter’s decision to offer verification to anyone for $7.99 a month.
In a post made on the social media network’s staff page on Thursday, Tumblr introduced the option for users to purchase two blue checkmarks to appear next to their account name for $7.99. For those who haven’t been keeping up with Elon Musk’s straight-up catastrophic takeover of Twitter, subscribers of Twitter Blue can now get themselves verified on the platform for $7.99. The decision has been met with criticism, and has even been abused by individuals impersonating notable figures like LeBron James.
“Hi! We’re introducing Important Blue Internet Checkmarks here on Tumblr,” the post announcing Tumblr’s double blue checkmark subscription. “They’re a steal at $7.99—that’s cheaper than some other places, when you consider that you get not one but TWO checkmarks for your blog on web only (for now). Why, you ask? Why not? Nothing matters! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.”
On the checkout page for the subscription, per Insider, Tumblr clarifies that the tick is not a true verification but a “coveted status symbol” and nothing more. “This is not a verification status; it’s an Important Blue Internet Checkmark, which in 2022 is just as legit,” reads the disclaimer. “Also the Important Blue Internet Checkmark may turn into a bunch of crabs at any time.”
The mockery of Musk’s questionable decisions following his $44 billion acquisition of the company comes after a chaotic week, which saw countless staff let go and multiple top security executives resign. Musk recently admitted that his blue check verification program “maybe” a “dumb decision,” and as of Friday Twitter has paused its subscription service.
As reported by CNBC, the iPhone app no longer allows users to sign up for Twitter Blue. Platformer managing editor Zoë Schiffer tweeted that the decision was made “to help address impersonation issues,” which is something almost everyone warned about before Musk just went and greenlit the idea anyway.
Existing subscribers will still have access to their features, but for the time being Twitter Blue is inaccessible.
Following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter on October 27, the world’s richest man proposed a range of controversial changes to the platform. With mounting evidence that he is making it up as he goes along, these proposals are tweeted out in a stream-of-consciousness manner from Musk’s Twitter account.
Primarily to raise revenue, one of the ideas was to charge US$8 a month to obtain a verified status – that is, the coveted blue tick badge next to the account handle.
Within the space of a few days, the paid verification change has already been rolled out in several countries, including Australia, under the Twitter Blue subscription service.
More than just verification
According to Twitter, the blue tick lets people know an account of interest is authentic. Currently, there are seven categories of “public interest accounts”, such as government office accounts, news organisations and journalists, and influencers.
Yet this seemingly innocuous little blue icon is far from a simple verification tool in Twitter’s fight against impersonation and fraud.
In the public view, a verified status signifies social importance. It is a coveted status symbol to which users aspire, in large part because Twitter’s approval process has made it difficult to obtain.
That’s partly because the blue tick has a controversial history. After receiving widespread condemnation for verifying white supremacists in 2017, Twitter halted its verification process for more than three years.
There’s a fundamental mismatch between what Twitter wants the blue tick to mean versus how the public perceives it, something the Twitter Safety team itself acknowledged in 2017.
Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance. We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it. We have paused all general verifications while we work and will report back soon
But they didn’t resolve it. When Twitter resumed verifying accounts systematically in 2021, it wasn’t long until the process began to fail again, with blue ticks being handed out to bots and fake accounts.
Moreover, the public is still confused about what the blue tick signifies, and views it as a status symbol.
Lords and peasants
Musk’s stream-of-consciousness policy proposals may reflect his own preference for interacting with verified accounts. Despite his repeated claims of “power to the people” and breaking the “lords and peasants” system of verified versus non-verified accounts, I ran a data analysis of 1,493 of Musk’s tweets during 2022, and found that more than half (57%) of his interactions were with verified accounts.
Evidently, having a verified status makes one worthy of his attention. Thus, Musk himself arguably views the blue tick as a status symbol, like everyone else (except Twitter).
However, Musk’s US$8 blue tick proposal is not only misguided but, ironically, likely to produce even more inauthenticity and harm on the platform.
A fatal flaw stems from the fact that “payment verification” is not, in fact, verification.
Fact from fraud
Although Twitter’s verification system is by no means perfect and is far from transparent, it did at least aspire to the kinds of verification practices journalists and researchers use to distinguish fact from fiction, and authenticity from fraud. It takes time and effort. You can’t just buy it.
Despite its flaws, the verification process largely succeeded in rooting out a sizable chunk of illegitimate activity on the platform, and highlighted notable accounts in the public interest. In contrast, Musk’s payment verification only verifies that a person has US$8.
Just to make this as clear as possible.
What verification means now: We’ve confirmed this person or company is who they say they are.
What verification will mean in the future: I have $8.
Elon could still back out of this, but that’s the fundamental change that he’s proposing.
Payment verification can’t guarantee the system won’t be exploited for social harm. For example, we already saw that conspiracy theory influencers such as “QAnon John” are at risk of becoming legitimised through the purchase of a blue tick.
Opening the floodgates for bots
The problem is even worse at larger scales. It is hard enough to detect and prevent bot and troll networks from poisoning the information landscape with disinformation and spam.
Now, for the low cost of US$800, foreign adversaries can launch a network of 100 verified bot accounts. The more you can pay, the more legitimacy you can purchase in the public sphere.
To make matters worse, Musk publicly stated that verified accounts who pay US$8 will be granted more visibility on the platform, while non-verified accounts will be suppressed algorithmically.
He believes this will solve hate speech and fake accounts by prioritising verified accounts in search, replies and mentions. If anything, it will have the opposite effect: those with enough money will dominate the public sphere. Think Russian bots and cryptocurrency spammers.
Consider also that the ability to participate anonymously on social media has many positive advantages, including safety for marginalised and at-risk groups.
Giving users tools to manage their public and personal spheres is crucial to self-identity and online culture. Punishing people who want to remain anonymous on Twitter is not the answer.
Worse yet, connecting social media profiles to payment verification could cause real harm if a person’s account is compromised and the attacker learns their identity through their payment records.
A cascade of consequences
Musk’s ideas are already causing a cascading series of unintended consequences on the platform. Accounts with blue ticks began changing their profile handle to “Elon Musk” and profile picture to parody him. In response, Musk tweeted a new policy proposal that Twitter handles engaging in impersonation would be suspended unless they specify being a “parody”.
Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended
Users will not even receive a warning, as comedian Kathy Griffin and her 2 million followers discovered when her account was suspended for parodying Musk.
Musk’s vision for user verification does not square up with that of Twitter or the internet research community.
While the existing system is flawed, at least it was systematic, somewhat transparent, and with the trappings of accountability. It was also revisable in the face of public criticism.
On the other hand, Musk’s policy approach is tyrannical and opaque. Having abolished the board of directors, the “Chief Twit” has all the power and almost no accountability.
We are left with a harrowing vision of a fragile and flawed online public square: in a world where everyone is verified, no one is verified.
Elon Muskis wasting no time making changes at his newly-acquired Twitter.
According to The Verge, the tech mogul wants to charge people $19.99 a month for the new Twitter Blue subscription, which currently stands at $4.99 a month. And based on the outlet’s sources, one of the benefits of the new subscription package will include verification on Twitter. For users who are currently verified, they will have to subscribe 90 days after the current plan is put into place, or risk losing their blue checkmark.
Perhaps more jarring than the new subscription model is the deadline that Musk has allegedly put in place. Per The Verge, Musk has given employees until November 7 to put this new plan into place. If they fail to meet that date, they’ll be fired.
While the move may come as a surprise to some, Musk has previously hinted that he would make such a change.
The whole verification process is being revamped right now
“The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted just days after acquiring Twitter.
While his tenure as Twitter’s head honcho is just days old, Musk is already ruffling feathers. Earlier this week, it was reported that use of the N-word had increased on the platform since Musk’s takeover. That prompted LeBron James to call on Musk to do something.
I dont know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns twitter. But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech. https://t.co/Sy0jvXIBnC
“I don’t know Elon Musk and, tbh, I could care less who owns twitter,” James tweeted. “But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people take this very seriously because this is scary AF. So many damn unfit people saying hate speech is free speech.”
