San Francisco The text messaging service Twitter rolled out an update on Saturday, among other things in the USA, which promises advanced features for $ 7.99. In the future, users should receive a blue verification hook, be shown less advertising and be able to share longer videos, the platform announced.
However, the new features have not yet been activated, Twitter product manager Esther Crawford said on Saturday. The functions are currently in the test phase.
About a week ago, billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter for $ 44 billion and announced the payment service for Monday. He said that this would reduce the problem of fake account on the platform.
The new service is intended to replace Twitter’s previous payment service called Twitter Blue. Twitter Blue is currently only available to users in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Musk announced on Saturday that the service will be rolled out worldwide in the future.
In a text on the update for Twitter, which has been rolled out since Saturday, it said: “Your account will get the blue tick; as well as the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow.“
Since Musk completed the Twitter acquisition just over a week ago, he has embarked on a dramatic overhaul of the Internet service. Among other things, about half of the 7,500 employees were terminated, as confirmed by Twitter security chief Yoel Roth. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey took responsibility for this on Saturday. “I let the company grow too fast,” he wrote on Twitter. “I apologize for that.“
Since 2009, the verification hooks have been intended to guarantee the authenticity of a profile and help prevent someone from posing as a celebrity. Before the current change, Twitter had around 423,000 verified accounts, including many from journalists from all over the world, who got the tick regardless of the number of their followers.
Experts warn that without such a system, Twitter’s 238 million daily users may no longer be able to easily determine whether the accounts from which they receive information are really genuine.
