After acquiring the social media giant, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, has said that the verification process on the platform, which adds a blue tick next to the profile name, is being revamped. Platformer’s Casey Newton first reported that Twitter was considering charging for verification. Elon Musk has given Twitter employees an ultimatum on Sunday. Meet the deadline (November 7th) to introduce the new paid verification feature on Twitter or you will be fired.
The directive is to change Twitter’s optional, $4.99-a-month subscription that unlocks additional features into a more expensive subscription that also verifies users. Twitter is currently planning to charge $19.99 for a new Twitter Blue subscription. Under the current plan, verified users would have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmark. The Twitter Blue subscription launched widely almost a year ago as a way to view ad-free articles from some publishers and make other tweaks to the app, such as a different home screen icon.
It has only been three days since Elon Musk took control of Twitter. Musk has moved quickly to make changes at Twitter. The first change was to change the homepage for logged-out users. With the help of Tesla engineers he has brought into Twitter as advisors, he is also planning mass layoffs aimed at middle managers and engineers who haven’t previously contributed to the code base. Those cuts are expected to begin this week, with managers already creating lists of employees to cut. Employees tasked with executing projects of Musk’s since he took control Thursday evening have been working late into the night and over the weekend.
