UPDATE 11/8: Yoel Roth, Head of Safety & Integrity at Twitter, says the company has "made the decision not to launch Verification for Twitter Blue until after Election Day."
Original Story:
Twitter on Saturday released an updated version of its iOS app that adds the ability to secure a blue checkmark when you subscribe to a $7.99-per-month Blue plan.
"Starting today, we're adding great new features to Twitter Blue, and have more on the way soon," Twitter says in in the app's version history. For $7.99 per month, "your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow," it says.
The update is rolling out for iOS users in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. "As soon as we confirm it’s working well in the initial set of countries and we have the translation work done, it will roll out worldwide," Elon Musk, Twitter's new owner, tweeted today.
As of 3 p.m. ET, the app was still charging $4.99 per month via Apple's in-app payment system on iPhone, though the subscribe prompt changed from "Subscribe to $4.99 per month" to just "Subscribe" after the app update.
You can check it out for yourself by tapping your avatar on the top left of the iOS app, selecting Twitter Blue, and tapping Subscribe. Apple's in-app payment prompt will appear asking you to accept $4.99 per month in charges; you can cancel via Settings > [your name] > Subscriptions.
Musk says charging for verified blue checkmarks is necessary to help Twitter make money. Detractors argue that verification shouldn't be a premium feature that requires payment, but a signal to users that the accounts they're interacting with are genuine.
On Twitter this afternoon, Musk argued that "far too many legacy 'verified' checkmarks were handed out, often arbitrarily, so in reality they are *not* verified. You can buy as many as you want right now with a Google search."
Tying Twitter Blue and verification to verified systems from Apple, and eventually Google, "is a much better way to ensure verification," he writes.
This move, meanwhile, comes just three days before the US midterm elections, and Twitter employees, half of whom were laid off this week in a cost-cutting move, are reportedly concerned that Twitter won't have enough staff to handle what will likely be the usual election-related torrent of misinformation coming from bad actors.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of Safety & Integrity, however, said in a series of tweets this weekend that the layoffs affect “approximately 15%" of his team, with the front-line moderation team experiencing the “least” impact.
“More than 80% of our incoming content moderation volume was completely unaffected by this access change. The daily volume of moderation actions we take stayed steady through this period," he wrote.
This afternoon, Musk also argued that Twitter's Birdwatch fact-check feature "is an absolute gamechanger for fighting mis/disinformation at scale," though it came in response to a tweet noting that one of Musk's own tweets about advertisers on Twitter had been fact-checked.