Zeeshan Aleem: Elon Musk changed the meaning of verified badges irrevocably. Here's why Twitter Blue could put Elon in the red.
, Musk fundamentally misunderstood or disregarded the true value of verified badges to most people who had them. Their original purpose was for Twitter to confirm that public figures were who they actually said they were in order to combat impersonation and misinformation. It was the key feature of what made Twitter a reliable source of news: verified accounts helped separate trustworthy statements and reporting from rumors and false claims.
But Musk decided that the reason verified badges were important was not because they verified identity, but because of the way they signaled social clout — and that he could cash in on this by trying to get a bigger network of people to pay for them. So now under his paid verification service, users’ identities are not confirmed, but blue checks can be distributed to anyone willing to open up their wallet. In other words, he’s hollowed out their meaning but kept the trappings intact.
Twitter’s pivot on verified check marks is further complicated by the fact that it’s unclear which organizations exactly will lose their legacy ticks Saturday.story based on an internal report from Twitter, the company “will make exceptions for its top 500 advertisers and for the 10,000 most-followed organizations that have been previously verified.” That’s not Twitter’s public position, and Twitter responded to requests for comment from the Times and fromwith a poop emoji auto-response.
Regardless of how those possible exceptions play out, the meaning of verified badges on Twitter has likely changed irrevocably. Whereas before they were a useful tool for combating misinformation, they now only represent the price to entry for play-to-pay influencer and activist activity.
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