LONDON: Twitter chief Elon Musk has announced putting more of the social media platform’s features behind a paywall by giving the paid blue tick service a shakeup.
As of April 15, only the tweets of verified Blue subscribers will be promoted to others on the “For You” stream.
Paid blue tick owners will also be the only ones to vote in polls.
“This is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over,” said Musk in a tweet on Monday. “It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle.”
“Voting in polls will require verification for same reason,” Musk added.
Despite this, Musk later tweeted: “That said, it is ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service and do not impersonate a human.”
Last week, Twitter stated that “legacy” accounts, which have a free blue tick, including celebrities, government officials, and other high-profile users, would lose their free verification starting in April.
To maintain their verification, those accounts will have to pay a fee of either $8 a month or $84 per year.
Twitter Blue subscribers currently pay $7 a month.
After Musk took control of Twitter in October last year, he turned to a subscription-based model to shift the firm away from being dependent on advertising for revenue, especially as a large number of the platform’s ad base withdrew following his takeover.
