Musk: Twitter only polls for paying subscription customers

Twitter owner Elon Musk announced further steps on Tuesday to get users to subscribe. Starting April 15, only tweets from paying customers will be allowed to appear in the “For You” section, where contributions from software will be selected.

That’s “the only realistic way” to defend yourself against a deluge of automated bot accounts, Musk argued Tuesday night.

The move could narrow the reach of tweets from users without the $8 per month plan. However, no figures are known about how many posts on Twitter can be displayed by the algorithm instead of the chronological order.

After April 15, only paying subscribers will be able to participate in Twitter surveys. Musk had voted, among other things, on whether he should sell more shares in the electric car maker Tesla he runs or whether ex-President Donald Trump’s account should be unlocked.

In an investigation initiated by Musk last year, users also told him to give up his post on Twitter. He promised to follow suit, but later said the search for the boss would last until the end of the year.

Musk speaks of “verified accounts”, which should be reserved for the functions. However, the well-known verification check mark on Twitter will soon have a different meaning than before. Before the Musk acquisition, Twitter assigned the blue icons to celebrities, politicians or journalists after verifying personal information. It meant that the account actually belongs to a specific person or company. These previously assigned check marks should disappear starting April 1, as Musk recently announced.

Instead, only customers on the “Twitter Blue” plan are allowed to have the same symbols in their account as before. After the chaos with fake accounts when the first checks were issued in November, there are higher hurdles for this. For example, an account must be at least 90 days old and the profile picture may not have been changed recently. However, according to the rules, personal identification is still not provided.

Musk bought Twitter last October for about $44 billion. After a drop in advertising revenue, he wants to focus more on subscription revenue. (sda/dpa)