Elon Musk, the current owner of Twitter has announced that Blue badge will now cost $8 (approximately N3,508) , a reduction from the $20 earlier reported by Verge.
According to Musk, the price is adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.
“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” said Musk who refers to himself “Chief Twit’.
The subscription gives Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators
Read also: Verified Twitter users to pay N8,760 every month
Launched in 2021, the Twitter Blue badge offers exclusive access to premium features like the ability to edit tweets, undo tweets, and more.
The Twitter verified badge helps people know that an account of public interest is authentic. Getting the verified badge requires being notable and active.
Twitter describes notable accounts into different categories. These are government, News organizations, individuals in news and journalists, companies, brands and organizations, Entertainment, sports and gaming, activists and organizers and content creators, and influential individuals. For many users, the blue badge is a status symbol.
The microblogging platform recorded about 360,000 verified accounts, which is 0.2 percent of Twitter’s monetisable daily active users. Getting verified also allows users to upload videos up to 10 minutes long and more. When it launched in 2021, the cost of verification was $3 but was reviewed upwards in October to $5.
According to a Verge report, the directive is likely to kick off in November as Twitter employees directly responsible for the upgrade were given a November 7 deadline to launch the feature or they will be fired.
Elon Musk the new owner of the microblogging platform confirmed the overhauling of the entire verification process while responding to a user who needed help to get his account verified. He is believed to be keen on growing subscriptions to become half of the company’s overall revenue.
Musk is also planning to rejig the character limit for Twitter posts. He is expected to cut more jobs starting this week and managers are reportedly creating lists of employees to cut.
