The owner of Twitter decides to keep something he was about to delete.
Elon Musk has reversed his position on a key announcement he made on March 27.
As part of his Twitter Blue review, Musk had said that accounts would need to be verified to appear in the microblogging site’s “For You” section, which is a collection of tweets that a user can see when logged in.
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“Starting April 15, only verified accounts will be eligible to be on For You recommendations,” Musk wrote. “That’s the only realistic way to approach control of advanced AI bot swarms. Otherwise, it’s a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for the same reason.”
But after several complaints, Musk changed that policy on March 28.
“Forgot to mention that the accounts you follow directly will also be in For You, since you explicitly requested them,” he tweeted.
The “For You” section includes recommendations that Twitter makes to users based on their activity, the people and organizations they follow, and who follow them.
It is also a means of wide exposure for certain influencers, who see their messages disseminated to the largest number of potential followers when they are included in “For you”.
The blue checkmark designating a user’s account verification was free on Twitter until Musk took over in October 2022.
But Musk decided to cash in on it by integrating the blue badge into Blue, the platform’s subscription service, which he revamped to unlock new revenue streams.
Blue costs $7.99 per month if you sign up online and $11 if you sign up through Apple. (AAPL) – Get a free reportApp store, for example.
When he decided to charge for the checkmark, Musk said he would give users with the legacy blue badges a grace period.
“On April 1st, we will begin shutting down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks,” Twitter said on March 23.
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