Elon Musk had the last blue ticks deleted on Twitter, which indicated that the Twitter account in question is actually operated by the person or entity with a high level of awareness. Anyone who still sees blue ticks on Twitter accounts must know that they have a completely different meaning: The account owner sent Mr. Musk eight dollars, around ten euros or a similar amount of money.
This is how much it costs individuals to subscribe to “Twitter Blue” per month. The account must be at least 30 days old and have a verified phone number on file to get a tick.
The cross with the new hooks
Any deception, fraud, misinformation or spam must not be apparent. Twitter no longer checks whether the account operator is actually who he claims to be. The previous criterion of being a public figure has also been dropped: that opens the door to practical jokes. Think of namesakes of celebrities like Olaf Scholz or Gerd Müller. Anyone can access it, Musk even takes money from the Taliban.
Twitter has gold ticks for businesses and gray ticks for government accounts. These cost significantly more, at a minimum of $1,000 per month per organization plus $50 per month for each Twitter account associated with that organization. In Europe, the prices are usually higher (EUR 950 per month per organization plus EUR 50 per month per account, each plus VAT).
Mastodon grows
At the same time, Twitter boss Musk introduced high fees for using Twitter’s program interfaces (API). More and more organizations are therefore deciding to no longer provide Twitter with any further content. Some are switching to the Fediverse.
Mastodon in particular is very popular. heise online operates on Mastodon own instance for a quarter of a year; Recently, ARD and ZDF have also been feeling their way into Fediverse with their own Mastodon instances. Microsoft takes advantage of the moment and offers free verification of identity and employer on its LinkedIn platform. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, wants to make small change and also introduces fee-based labels at Meta.
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