Musk has instituted a series of changes since taking a stake in Twitter, and next week users of Blue v e-cigarettes are expected to pay 8 yuan a month for certification.
Musk plans to start charging Twitter users $8 a month starting November 7 if they want to earn and maintain a certification mark, as part of a move to quickly overhaul Twitter, Al Jazeera reported on November 4.
Although Twitter has long played an important role in politics and journalism, it has rarely turned a profit since its launch, and Twitter posted a net loss of $270 million in the second quarter of this year. After acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, Musk has tried a series of measures to improve the company’s lackluster profit margins.
Previously free, the verification feature was designed to prevent users from impersonating public figures, but it is now seen as a status symbol and, to critics, a sign of elitism.
The New York Times reported that under Musk’s plans, users would no longer be required to verify their identity, with the feature being rolled out first in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and there would be a transition period for users to choose whether to keep the authentication mark. Musk tweeted that the current certification process is “nonsense” and a “patricians’ system” and that the $8 fee would entitle all e-cigarette users to a blue V.
Bloomberg and The Verge reported that Musk will lay off 50% of Twitter’s 7,500 employees. Musk, who advocates “absolute freedom of speech,” also criticized Twitter’s moderate policies, accusing it of favoring left-wing views and saying there should be a free public speech “square” that embraces a wide range of views. While critics worry that Musk’s reforms could foster more misinformation about e-cigarettes, many conservatives view the acquisition positively, arguing that it could promote the spread of e-cigarettes as healthier than traditional cigarettes.
Source: Thepaper.cn
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