Elon Musk relaunched a Twitter subscription service on Monday after an initial attempt saw an embarrassing spate of fake accounts that startled advertisers and cast doubt on the site’s future.
The first attempt last month came just 10 days after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the platform and a round of mass layoffs that saw the company’s workforce halved, including teams of content moderators.
The reboot of Twitter Blue This occurs in a handful of countries, including the United States Tesla and SpaceX The owner has ramped up his tweets to support right-wing causes, including opposing the use of gender-neutral pronouns and the US government’s response to it COVID-19.
The subscription service costs $8 (about 660 rupees) per month for users who access it Twitter on the web and $11 (about Rs 900) if you sign up with one Apple Device.
The initial launch of Twitter Blue caused an uproar when many fake accounts pretending to be celebrities or corporations surfaced, forcing Musk’s team to pull the plug on the scheme.
This time, the company beefed up its verification process with a Twitter-required review before earning the coveted blue mark.
A blue tick on an account to indicate it was verified by Twitter was previously free but reserved for organizations and public figures to avoid impersonation and misinformation.
The relaunch came on the same day as reported musk dissolved Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council – a body established six years ago that allows the company to draw on global experts to help shape strategy around hate speech, child safety, civil rights and other sensitive issues.
An email sent to council members said Twitter was reassessing how it brings “outside insight” to its work and decided the council “isn’t the best structure for it,” the Washington Post and CNN reported, citing them on copies of the message.
Some members of the Trust and Safety Council have already resigned in protest, saying the well-being of Twitter users is declining under Musk’s leadership, CNN reported.
personal attacks
Since his acquisition, content moderation has proven to be a major concern for Musk, who describes himself as a free speech absolutist and has vowed to let people tweet whatever they want within the law.
But the billionaire’s commitment to unqualified comments has turned off major advertisers and caught the attention of regulators.
Musk believes Twitter’s former owner had strong left-wing and pro-LGBTQ bias and unfairly banned accounts, including former US President Donald Trump.
On Sunday, he slammed outgoing key adviser on the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Anthony Fauci, a frequent target of right-wing media stinginess.
“My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” Musk said, sneering at the growing practice of people listing their preferred gender pronouns.
Late Monday, a trending comment on Twitter in response to Musk urged people to change their pronouns to boycott/Tesla.
The White House slammed Musk for the tweets directed at Fauci, calling them “disgusting” and “disconnected from reality.”
“These personal attacks that we’re seeing are incredibly dangerous,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.
CNN reported that Twitter’s former head of trust and safety fled his home after baseless attacks on Twitter backed by Musk.
Yoel Roth, who left the company in November, has been the subject of threats since Musk released internal documents supporting baseless theories about collusion by some tweeters with the Democratic Party.
The attacks took a serious turn on Sunday when Musk backed a tweet accusing Roth of being an apologist for pedophilia — a common expression used by conspiracy theorists to target opponents.
The South African-born billionaire’s embrace of right-wing talkers seemed to draw increasing scorn in politically liberal San Francisco, where Twitter is headquartered.
Musk was loudly booed by a crowd in the city late Sunday after being invited on stage by comedian Dave Chappelle.
“It’s almost like I insulted the mad leftists of San Francisco… but no,” Musk tweeted after the event.
Carolina Milanesi, a tech analyst at Creative Strategies, warned that Musk’s political turn on Twitter could be problematic for the company.
