Twitter owner Elon Musk is taking the next step to get users to sign up for a paid subscription. From April 15, only tweets from paying subscription customers will appear in the "Für dich" area, where the contributions of software are selected. This is "the only realistic way" to defend against a flood of automated bot accounts, Musk argued on Tuesday night.
The move could reduce the reach of users' tweets without the eight-euro subscription per month. However, no figures are known on how many Twitter posts are displayed by the algorithm instead of chronological order.
Twitter Blue customers only
Only paying subscription customers will be able to participate in Twitter surveys after April 15. Among other things, Musk had voted on whether he should sell more shares in the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he leads, or whether the account of former President Donald Trump should be unblocked.
Users also spoke out last year in a survey initiated by Musk that he should give up the top job at Twitter. He promised to follow suit - but later said that the chief search is likely to drag on until the end of this year.
Musk speaks of "verified accounts" to which the functions should be reserved. However, the well-known verification check mark on Twitter will soon have a different meaning than before. Prior to Musk's acquisition, Twitter awarded the blue icons to celebrities, politicians or journalists after a review of personal data. It meant that the account actually belongs to a specific person or company. These previously assigned ticks are to disappear from April 1, as Musk recently announced.
Instead, only customers of the subscription offer "Twitter Blue" should be allowed to have the symbols that look exactly as before in their accounts. After a chaos with fake accounts when the first payment ticks were issued in November, there are higher hurdles for this. For example, an account must be at least 90 days old and must not have recently changed the profile photo. However, personal identification is still not provided for according to the rules.
Musk bought Twitter last October for around $44 billion. After a slump in advertising revenues, he wants to focus more on subscription revenues.