To the surprise of no one, this has led to people making accounts to impersonate notable figures, and businesses, with the blue checkmark, and making Tweets which look incredibly stupid. This could be seen as harmless fun, however, there have also been people using this new scheme to set up scams, as seen in the image to the right, which may trick enough people to offset the cost of a blue tick.
It is unlikely that this alone will cause a headache for Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion, and sold $4 billion worth of Tesla stock. A financial calculation he may come to regret, as the rush to roll out a Twitter subscription plan seems to be to recover income quickly.
Other controversies around Twitter Blue alone stem from the “coming soon” features, such as boosting Tweets above others, and seeing less ads than regular users, but not an ad-free experience. There was, for a few hours, a badge that tagged some verified users as “Official”, but this was gone before the day was up.
This chaotic takeover is not looking like it is going to get any easier for Elon Musk, a small plaster on the Twitter Blue programme has been applied, so accounts created after November 9th cannot subscribe. This is unlikely to do more than stem the bleeding, as there are millions of dormant accounts which could be used.
What the future holds for Twitter is uncertain, for now, it is a textbook example of how not to run a business.
WRITTEN & EDITED BY Three of Seven - rena.hobden@ufplanets.com
