As Elon Musk announced in a tweet, soon only users with a Twitter Blue account will appear with their tweets in the “For You” feed. According to the Twitter boss, this is “the only realistic way to defend against a flood of automated bot accounts”. The reach of non-paying people will probably be significantly smaller as a result. There is a chronological view of the timeline, the posts still appear there, the second variant is the feed with suggestions. There are no figures for how many users have which view.
In a second tweet, Musk adds that this means unverified bot accounts that follow the guidelines and don’t pretend to be people. In other words, automated tweets from companies and the media are still possible. But they also have to take out a subscription. It is also still questionable whether and how the Twitter Blue subscription model and the announced costs for using the Twitter APIs will complement each other or what the API access will cost. This should actually be subject to a fee long ago, but the start has been postponed indefinitely.
Twitter Blue also for polls
The poll function in tweets will also be reserved for paying customers. Musk had asked her to vote on whether Donald Trump should get his account back. This was closed after the storming of the US Capitol.
Until now, the blue tick in the profile was used to verify that it was a well-known person. This version is scheduled to disappear from April 1st. Instead, there is the Twitter Blue hook for individuals, which costs eight euros a month, optionally 84 euros a year. Companies and organizations should pay 950 euros per month, plus 50 euros for each connected account.
Twitter needs revenue streams. Musk said just a few days ago that the short message service was worth about half of what it paid for – $20 billion.
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(emw)
