Elon Musk has defended his controversial decision to charge users who want to verify their accounts, saying social networks that don’t follow his example will eventually collapse under the torrent of fake accounts. Musk explained during a question-and-answer session on his platform, on the eve of adopting paid authentication as of April 1, that “the biggest challenge here lies in the fact that it is very easy to create ten thousand or a hundred thousand fake accounts on Twitter with one computer and contemporary artificial intelligence technology.” “That is why this verification can only be done using the phone number and credit card, and my expectation is that the so-called social networks that will not do this will collapse,” he added. The businessman is also seeking a way to generate revenue for a company he says has lost more than half its value since its $40 billion takeover. However, this development raises many questions among companies, celebrities, politicians, and journalists who use Twitter as one of their main means of communication and rely on the blue check mark as evidence of their credibility. This change also raises the issue of scammers and scammers who will pay for a verification mark but for fake accounts. In the US, the subscription, called Twitter Blue, costs $8 a month and $11 through the Apple App Store. Since its launch in 2009, the blue tick has become a key element in making the social network a trusted forum for many users. But Elon Musk has consistently viewed this tag as a form of digital segregation, and making the blue tag available to anyone willing to pay for it was one of the first decisions the billionaire made when he bought the social network last year. However, this step was not crowned with success, as the launch of the first version of the subscription led to a wave of fake accounts, some of which sometimes impersonated Elon Musk himself, which forced him to undo the step that prompted many advertisers to stop cooperation with the platform and Twitter lost huge revenues. At present, it is difficult to know whether the new system will be widely adopted. And the White House, which will maintain a special code as a government agency, announced that it will not pay for the accounts of its employees, according to the specialized “Axios” website. Likewise, most media outlets and companies are waiting to see how things go before deciding whether or not to pay $1,000 a month, and an additional $50 per account, in the United States.
