Deep Blue Twitter

The phenomenon of impersonation and fake profiles is a blow that Twitter has been suffering from (not only it, but also other social networks) for a long time. According to various studies, a quarter of Elon Musk’s own followers are fake profiles. Elon Musk used this argument in his negotiations to lower the price he paid for Twitter.

When Elon Musk bought the social network Twitter for the monstrous amount of 43 billion dollars, it was clear that he would take steps to try to return the investment.

In the first days of his new position (at the same time as being the richest man in the world who runs other huge companies), he fired workers and managers with the swing of a machete and cut the beef at dangerous levels, which seemed as if he was testing the system’s limitations in terms of the minimum manpower necessary for its stability. Twitter then looked like a SpaceX rocket just after the explosion. Advertisers and users have abandoned and it seems as if Elon is doing everything to kill the network.

On April 1, 2023, Twitter, under Musk’s leadership, removed the blue V verification from all accounts. That blue hook has been a status symbol all these years, but also confirmation that Twitter has verified the identity of the account owners and confirms (by displaying a blue hook) that this is a real, legitimate account.

At the same time as the complete cancellation of the Blue Way, Twitter began to offer everyone to purchase Twitter Blue – a premium subscription that grants a paid Blue Way and provides additional premium features such as the ability to edit tweets, 50% fewer ads, the ability to create much longer tweets, highlight text, upload a longer video and some other features.

The account must meet the following criteria to receive or keep the blue logo:

Only accounts that are actively subscribed to the Twitter Blue service are eligible to receive the blue badge after a review by Twitter.

Data integrity: Account must include name and profile picture.

Account in active use: The account must be active for the last 30 days to be eligible to register as a Blue Hook subscriber.

Security: The account must be more than 30 days old and the owner must verify their phone number.

Not misleading: any change in the visibility of the account such as the profile picture, the display name or the username (@handle) will result in the removal of the blue checker until re-examination and re-approval by a team on behalf of Twitter.

Accounts that are suspected of deception or impersonation, or that show signs of engaging in platform manipulation and spamming, will not be approved.

The paid subscription that was launched at the beginning of April 2023 effectively canceled the blue hook marks given under the previous criteria (active, prominent and authentic) and only a few accounts that Elon Musk claimed (in a tweet on Twitter of course) that he paid for remain with a blue hook, for example the writer Stephen King.

The verified subscription brought with it a lot of criticism for the ease of the verification process on the grounds that it was not strict enough and even led to a user revolt. But it seems that more and more users active on the platform have realized that these are the new rules of the game. Some have given up on the blue hue for now. Others pay to verify their account and get a blue hook as well as some premium features. Verification of a private Twitter subscription in Israel costs about 29 NIS per month (or 300 NIS per year).

Twitter also offers Gold Verification for business accounts. A gold hook for a business account costs about 3,600 NIS every month.