Twitter, because charging blue ticks is counterproductive

Considering how the acquisition of Twitter from Elon Musk has proved chaotic since the initial botched jokes, it is not surprising that the first change introduced by the entrepreneur is destined to disrupt the social hierarchy of the platform.

Last weekend, at the beginning of Musk’s reign, news began to circulate that the entrepreneur was putting in place a plan to shelve the current process of verifying the identity of users, which involves the assignment of a blue tick on the profile. Musk’s new project calls for people to pay one monthly fee to verify your accounts, as part of the company’s Twitter Blue service. Once the change is operational, already verified accounts will have ninety days to pay in order not to lose their status.

The proposal it was not well received by advanced Twitter users, so-called power user. Writer Stephen King, for example, tweeted that he would abandon the platform rather than pay for the blue tick. For the moment, however, Musk he doesn’t seem to be upset from negative reactions.

The original sense of the system

Switching to a paid model undermines the original purpose of user verification. In 2009 Twitter introduced the blue ticks in response to a lawsuit filed by the manager of the US baseball team the St. Louis Cardinals, Tony La Russa, as a way to demonstrate the will to put a stop to the phenomenon of profiles pretending to be other people (La Russa si he was irritated by an account that was pretending to be him making jokes at his expense).

Verification was a method of ensuring that prominent people and organizations – from celebrities to politicians, through multinationals and government agencies – continued to feel comfortable on the platform. Among the first verified accounts were the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kim Kardashian. The media, then, have always appreciated the certification of the identity of the profiles. For the journalists trying to get sources to talk or for audience development teams trying to make a certain story visible, it makes sense to want a verified account: the impression to the public is that those profiles have been screened. The blue check also assured a journalist’s followers that the article shared by his account was actually news published by the newspaper she worked for.

Twitter’s user verification system obviously it was not a panacea for all fraud, lies and other forms of disinformation. The long-standing problems of moderation of the social network’s contents are well documented, and over the years the platform has also committed a series from mistakes in deciding which users to check and why. However, the blue ticks have favored the role of “digital square” for sharing information on Twitter. It is no coincidence that all the other big platforms, including Facebook and TikTok, have copied the blue ticks. In short, the system has proven to be of some use.

Vanity and influence

Then there is another reason why the blue ticks have taken hold on social networks: they make people feel important. They are a way to explain to the world who falls within the circle of VIPs. Apparently Musk considers them the digital equivalent of a luxury watch or a rare sneaker. Why not pay them? If you consider them as a kind of premium accessory, the introduction of a power tax seems logical.

But the idea of ​​turning blue ticks into something you can buy to appear cool betrays a poor understanding of the appeal of the system. Reducing the blue check to a simple marketable status symbol affects its original function. If anyone can buy them, the authentication aspect is diminished. There remains only the ridiculous belief that they serve to confer influence, an increasingly vacillating thesis.