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by partiallypro 1315 days ago
Unverified accounts provide most of the good content on Twitter, so I think you're wrong there. What should have happened is you do have an $8 (I think $8 is too much, but alas) verification, but you simply make the badge different. Some people say that defeats the purpose, but it doesn't. You then know you are talking to someone with a vested interest, and since credit cards are now linked to the account you can do more high value advertising to those customers. You also get the ability to edit, have slightly less ads, etc. It's such a simple solution. I don't know why Elon is being stubborn about it being the exact same, or why people are totally against the idea of new verification methods.

Getting verified previously with a small account was cumbersome and took ages.

2 comments

> Unverified accounts provide most of the good content on Twitter,

I don't think good content is the core value of twitter. In my perception value of twitter is who said what. Good or bad.

I don't use twitter and have contact with twitter only when it's cited elsewhere and bulk of most popular citations are mostly not "here's interesting thought someone had on twitter" but rather "this celebrity/politician/office tweeted that".

Blue tick was something that was seen as authority and was coveted, Musk wouldn't have got one tenth of people to subscribe for golden tick.
The blue check isn't coveted by most, there's even a meme about it being a mark of shame. I really think people that don't use Twitter often overestimate the importance of blue check accounts. If anything, they are the butt of a lot of jokes/content vs creating it. I am interested in the new Twitter Blue, but actually don't want the checkmark, but think it needs more features.

That being said, a normal user shouldn't have the same mark as an official Microsoft or government account. A secondary mark make sense, especially imo if only other paid and verified accounts can see the mark (I would just make it a hollow verified icon vs it being a different color.) Then it creates a network "in crowd" effect (similar to the green v blue text bubbles.) You also need to pair that with better tools and features.