According to a new report by The New York Times, Twitter may remove identity verification altogether. This managed to cause some controversy yet again, and could seriously affect the platform.
Let’s start from the beginning, though. Elon Musk confirmed that the Twitter Blue subscription will cost $8, instead of $4.99 that it currently does. He confirmed that recently, while saying that the subscription will also include the verification badge.
So, you won’t have to be a public personality or anything of the sort, to get a verification badge. Politicians and other public persons will have a special tag on their accounts, as was the case thus far.
Twitter may remove identity verification altogether
Now, everyone assumed that Twitter will keep the identity verification in place, though. That it will verify every person before it grants that person a verification tick. Well, that may not be the case, if this report is to be believed.
The report says: “Subscribers would not need their identities authenticated to get the check mark”. If this ends up being true, the Twitter checkmark will become a regular status symbol, and it won’t exactly guarantee that the person on the other side is legit.
Just to be clear, you can never 100% trust the verified icon, but it does give you some peace of mind. This may also create some additional problems with spam accounts, needless to say.
The source also says that the new Twitter Blue subscription plan and its perks may kick off in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, before it spreads to other regions.
The company is expected to make job cuts later today
That being said, Twitter is also expected to make job cuts later today. A report surfaced earlier, saying that employees will know their fate by 9 AM PST on Friday, which is today.
Elon Musk is making a lot of changes already, and needless to say, some of them are very controversial. It remains to be seen if these reports are accurate, though.
2022-11-04 15:06:48