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Notes -
Maybe time for a twitter-musk containment thread?
Elon Musk plans to democratize the Twitter verification badge
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1587523701452464131
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/1/23435092/elon-musk-twitter-blue-verification-cost-ads-search
In contrast to the belief that this is bad for scammers and spammers, I think it's the opposite. Scammers, especially crypto scammers, make so much money that $8 is a steal if it means having their tweets be more visible, hence more victims. The July 2020 twitter hack stole $130k of bitcoin using verified accounts, so $8 is nothing. NFT and 'rug pull' scams not uncommonly make hundreds of thousands of dollars too. Verification is expensive and time consuming, which is how you thwart spammers, by making the costs of spam high. Verified accounts sell for $1k or more on the secondary/dark markets, way more than $8. Or you have to send in a a lot of documents proving you are authentic real person, which is time consuming with a low rate of success (some companies will help you get your Twitter account verified , but for a large fee).
'The left' , which includes a lot of journalists, celebrities, and activists, oppose this for obvious reasons. The blue checkmark is a implicit signifier of having politically approved views and being an important person.
Part of the value of verification is that it's hard to obtain. But it does dilute the value of the blue checkmark though, so this means that there will likely be two tiers of verification, with a 'super verification' for important people.
The question is, do I want to hear more from people who like/need twitter so badly they will pay $8/month for this?
Pro: Official accounts from sports teams and major news outlets will pay up and so be higher in results, legit journalists and authors with good twitter presences will pay up.
Con: Morons trying to make it big will pay up. The accounts I follow that just post art and poetry probably won't. Obscure political takes, probably not. Reply-guys trying to get a following will. The hot-take accounts will pay up and get amplified.
I think paying extra for more reach on Twitter suffers from the same problem that Tinder has: on average, someone spending money on Tinder is probably worse than someone who doesn't. Because if you're hot, you're getting plenty of matches without paying; if you're paying, it is because you aren't getting many matches on your own and therefore probably aren't hot.
You will always reach the people you follow whether someone pays up or not. Verified accounts have priority in comment replies though and less likely to be filtered on search when tweeting hashtags
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