Le système de vérification des comptes sur le Twitter de Elon Musk semblait ne pas pouvoir devenir más incomprehensible, et pourtant la perplexité régnait de plus belle samedi, les badges bleus faisant leur retour sur certain comptes de médias ou personalités – qu’ils le veuillent or not.
“By my soul I didn’t pay for Twitter Blue, Tesla man, you’ll feel my wrath pass!” tweeted American rapper Lil Nas X, whose profile bears the blue checkmark.
Previously free, and a guarantee of authenticity and notoriety, it now means that the user is subscribed to Twitter Blue (for $8 per month) and that their phone number has been verified by the platform.
On Thursday, accounts that had the old blue badge lost it unless they paid for the new one, following Elon Musk’s strategy implemented this winter to authenticate users and generate new revenue.
But a small fraction of distinguished former users signed up: less than 5% of the 407,000 profiles in question, according to researcher Travis Brown.
On Friday and Saturday, a growing number of personalities found a blue mark, apparently without action on their part, such as writer Stephen King, NBA champion LeBron James or former President Donald Trump.
“No means no”
“No means no guys,” tech journalist Kara Swisher tweeted on Saturday, explaining that she was “forcefully controlled” without her “consent.”
“People need to know: Does Elon love me for me or for the 1.49 million people who follow me?” he added, an hour after stating that he would not pay “eight dollars a month for a blue brand and blah tools.” .
Many authenticated users, despite themselves, wanted it to be known that they had nothing to do with it, because the controversial badge has become a symbol of support for Elon Musk.
“Note that I haven’t subscribed to Twitter Blue, even though, for some mysterious reason, my blue tick reappears,” said author Rick Wilson.
Progressive economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who mocked Elon Musk’s “miscontrolled impulsiveness” last July, said Saturday: “I had nothing to do with it and I’m certainly not going to pay for it.”
The head of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX responded with an image of a baby smeared in ketchup, crying into his plate of pasta and wearing a blue bib with a check mark.
On Friday, the manager had indicated that he “personally paid some installments.”
“Checkmate,” he mysteriously tweeted on Saturday, amid speculation.
“Musk’s business model is to fake celebrity endorsements like a box of penis enlargement pills,” attorney Max Kennerly said.
Strike
Accounts of deceased people, such as American chef Anthony Bourdain, have also received the new blue badge.
And many official media accounts have it, too, including the New York Times, which lost its certification in early April after Elon Musk called information published there “propaganda.”
Some major news outlets have a gold badge reserved for “verified organizations” that pay at least $1,000 a month.
But US public radio NPR and public media group CBC Radio-Canada had not yet resumed tweeting as of Saturday.
These two organizations recently suspended their activities on Twitter in protest of the labels that Twitter had placed on them: “government-funded media” or “state-affiliated”, terms previously reserved for non-independent media financed by the autocratic government.
On Friday, Elon Musk’s platform removed these labels, even for the official Chinese agency Xinhua (New China) or the Russian RT.
“The real purpose of all this NPR hoopla was to help China and Russia? It seems that by removing labels from state-controlled media, Twitter is helping propaganda,” Kara Swisher said Saturday morning.
AFP did not contact Twitter, which officially no longer responds to the press except with a poop-shaped emoticon.
Source: BFM TV
