When Elon Musk took control of Twitter in a $44 billion acquisition, he pledged to make significant changes to the platform. And his primary focus for Twitter — besides laying off 50 percent of the company, tweeting conspiracy theories and begging advertisers to stay onboard — has been turning Twitter’s verification feature into a pay-for-play product.
Twitter launched its new version of Twitter Blue on Wednesday, which offered a verified checkmark badge without ID verification to any user who pays the $8 monthly fee. Given that the original purpose of the verified checkmark was to signify that the account user was who they claim to be, eliminating ID verification opened up a predictable problem for anyone who looks to Twitter for sports news (or any reliable information in general).
