Less than 48 hours after Twitter immediately canceled the introduction of another icon to mark official accounts, the icon is back. On Friday night, the gray tick reappeared under accounts such as the Reuters news agency or the New York Times, with the “official” personally “killed” by the new Twitter boss on Wednesday. This was preceded by downright chaos on the stage on Thursday, when various misleading but deceptively real-looking accounts posted tweets with one of the blue ticks that can now be purchased and it became increasingly clear that official accounts were being replaced with new ones. How hard is it to separate? The ones.
Twitter Under Musk: Mayhem Without End
Chaos continues on Twitter, with the recent change, the service has been owned by Elon Musk for less than two weeks. Following the acquisition, the latter announced that “Blue Tick”, previously marked by Twitter as a verified account, would become part of the new Twitter Blue subscription model. Twitter wants to charge $8 per month for this. At the same time, Musk announced that there should be a second label, as is currently the case with government representatives and institutions.
When this marking came on Tuesday, it was immediately abolished again. Instead, it was now only possible to determine whether a profile was purchased or assigned for verification by clicking on a profile and checking the box there. When the blue tick could be bought, the chaos took its course. For example, an apparently verified account from game maker Nintendo shared a photo with Super Mario extending the middle finger. Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly also apologized for the misleading promise of a genuine-looking account copy, according to which the insulin would be distributed free of charge. There are many more examples.
It is not yet clear what system Twitter now uses to assign “official” additional gray ticks. For example, the New York Times has one, as does the Washington Post and The British Economist, but CNN and Fox News, for example, do not. While Twitter’s own account is verified as such, Elon Musk’s is not. In Germany, for example, the local Samsung branch got one, but unlike Wednesday, Anne Will no longer has one. It is currently not possible to predict how verification will continue on Twitter.
Twitter bankruptcy not ruled out
According to US media reports, Elon Musk has meanwhile admitted internally that Twitter is in serious financial difficulties. In the coming year, there will be a huge hole in the balance sheet, according to Bloomberg, who quoted the new company boss. He put the company in debt of US$13 billion during the acquisition, with interest payments alone expected to increase from US$50 million to US$1 billion annually. If, under these circumstances, it is not possible to make more money than spent, “bankruptcy cannot be ruled out,” Musk warned internally. The billion-dollar sale of Tesla shares was necessary to save Twitter.
(MHO)
