Tech billionaire Elon Musk recently announced that only verified Twitter accounts will appear on the platform’s ‘For You’ recommendations page and be able to vote in polls starting April 15. In a tweet, he called it the “only realistic” way to address the issue of artificial intelligence (AI) bots swarming the platform. “It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle,” Mr Musk stated.
This announcement was immediately met with criticism, however, Mr Musk brushed it off. In the comment section, one Twitter user said, “I don’t get behind this decision”. The user stated that Twitter needed to invest in AI tech to detect bots on the platform. He also added that allowing only verified accounts to vote in polls would tarnish the reputation of the platform.
Responding to this, the Twitter chief predicted that changes to Twitter will make it the most trusted platform in the coming months. “My prediction is that this will be the only platform you can trust,” he said.
“Appreciate the reply. I admire your work, but essentially shadow banning those who don’t wish to pay for Twitter Blue could really hurt the platform in the long run,” the user counteracted while asking Mr Musk to reconsider his decision.
Several other users also said that the move would essentially render their ‘For You’ recommendations useless. “So the For You is not actually for me. It’s useless. Got it,” one user tweeted. “Just delete the whole website man, you clearly had zero understanding of why it was valuable in the first place,” said another.
“This is so lame. Come on….” commented a third. “i get why you don’t want to suggest accounts that may be bots, suggested has always been a weird feature. But polls, everyone uses polls, no one takes them seriously, making it verified only will not increase membership & will only make the feature redundant imo,” wrote a fourth.
Notably, Mr Musk had last week announced that users with “legacy” verified accounts would lose their blue ticks in April. This means that only users who sign up for Twitter Blue for $8 (roughly ₹ 600) a month can get blue tick verified accounts.
The microblogging site will remove the verified check-mark status of accounts that Twitter had verified as notable before Elon Musk’s takeover unless they have subscribed to Twitter Blue or the business-focused Twitter Verified Organizations plan. Mr Musk launched Twitter Blue with the check-mark badge as one of the premium perks within two weeks of the company’s takeover.
