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TWITTER CEO ELON Musk finally made good on his promise to strip thousands of accounts of their verification badges, commonly known as blue ticks, yesterday.
Many major news services, such as RTÉ News, Reuters, AFP and CNN, now have no mark distinguishing them from copycat or counterfeit accounts. The Journal is among those publishers to have lost its verification badge.
Since taking control of Twitter in October last year, Musk has repeatedly warned that verification badges would be exclusively available to members who pay at least €8 a month for Twitter Blue, Twitter’s subscription service.
Twitter has also stripped thousands of celebrities of their verification badges, including Beyoncé, Cristiano Ronaldo and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Elon Musk has said that he is ‘personally paying for’ verification badges for several high-profile Twitter users, including Stephen King, Lebron James and William Shatner.
All three had used Twitter to explicitly announce that they would not be paying for Twitter Blue.
Some state organisations, such as Met Éireann, An Garda Síochána, and various government departments, have retained a grey checkmark that identifies them as a ‘government or multilateral organisation account’.
Certain changes suggest that Twitter has not entirely refined its new approach to verification. Yesterday, the Pope’s Twitter account lost its verification badge, only for it to be replaced earlier this morning with a grey tick, marking it as a government account.
Similarly, some accounts have reported their verification badge disappearing and reappearing intermittently.
Twitter has also removed ‘State-affiliated media tags’ from state-run media organisations such as RT, CCTV, and Xinhua China News.
Some have speculated that this move was accidental, owing to the chaotic nature of Twitter at present, largely a result of cutting half of its workforce and the unpredictable whims of Musk himself. The website now regularly suffers bugs and outages, stops external links from working, and Musk himself has at various points intimated possible legal battles with Microsoft and Apple.
Verified account Unverified account pic.twitter.com/6MLJWU6sAV
— Elad Nehorai (@EladNehorai) April 21, 2023
Why all the fuss?
The move has added an additional layer of uncertainty to a platform that millions of people use as a direct source of news, by following journalists, public figures and government services.
Originally founded as a micro-blogging platform, Twitter rose to prominence after it found favour with celebrities, journalists and news services – quickly becoming a hub of breaking news activity and live reaction from key stakeholders in any major event.
Between 2015 and 2020, Twitter also served as the preferred mode of communication for US President Donald J Trump, who was banned from the site following the January 6 Capitol riots. Trump’s account was reinstated by Musk, though Trump has not returned to the site, and as of yesterday, his account – which still has 87 million followers – has been unverified.
Until Musk’s takeover, the most reliable way to distinguish between an official source of information and an impostor was the blue tick. This tick is now exclusively available to anybody who pays for Twitter Blue, which in many ways has inverted the original intention of the badge.
Users now must undergo a more rigorous scan of their sources on Twitter, personally verifying that an account is what it claims to be. While it may be difficult for the average troll to competently impersonate Beyoncé, the move will cause problems for local journalists, local public officials, and sources of official information.
It has been repeatedly demonstrated by US Senator Ed Markey that Twitter is also verifying Twitter Blue subscribers who sign up using a fake identity, undermining confidence even in those official accounts who have decided to pay for Twitter Blue.
Twitter may lag behind the likes of Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and others in terms of popularity, but the knock-on effects of this change will be felt by anyone who receives their news on social media, much of which is originally reported through Twitter.
While blue ticks might now become a rare sight when scrolling through your own Twitter feed, a scan of major spreaders of misinformation show that they are common on accounts dedicated to propagating arguments against the existence of climate change, sharing Russian military propaganda, or falsely claiming that vaccines are regularly lethal.
While subscribing to Twitter Blue is still and easy way for users to buy reach, as well as providing bonuses such as removing the character limit on tweets, its ability to signal credibility is fading fast.
With additional reporting from Shane Raymond.
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This would definitely ensure that many small businesses would fold.
While they force up rates for business too, some up by 75%. Enda Kenny is killing Irish business but you are all to blind to see it.
A lot of lazy idiots will simply take the piss and take a load of sick in a row, knowing well the employer cant do anything about it.
I think most decent workers who don’t currently have a sick pay entitlement in work would only use it if they really needed it.
I’ve never heard such rubbish. There are no advantages in this to be had by an employee. In fact all this legislation does is give an employer another reason to lower wages even more. It also encourages infighting between healthy and sick employees.
I’d definitely be leaving at least one person go when this comes in. Government just don’t get it do they?….small businesses are on the cross at the moment and are treading water at best. This must be one of the most anti business measures they’ve brought it.
Well we do know the Government are dumb enough to be thinking about it…
Lets see how many jobs they create after this comes in….its serious enough to make a multi national company choose another location over Ireland
Hair brained scheme. Reckless carry on from our Government. SME’s would implode.
Corrupt, sleazy, reckless private sector mismanagement in the economy threatens 100% of us all
I think you mean public sector…
Kingstown the private sector create the wealth like it or not & if we ever get out of this we will have the private sector to thank for it.
The private sector does don’t create wealth the consumer does
So would that mean no more P.A.Y.E contribution? Nah dont think so!
I love these soundbites everyday coming up to the budget…..
Sad times for the PAYE employee.
What about the employer who can’t even get benefit if the company closes??
This nonsense is the law in France and cripples small businesses and as a result small businesses avoid hiring anybody other than family. A little restaurant I used to go to had 3 waitresses employed, 2 were “on the sick”. When the third did the same, the man’s wife became the waitress. They won’t employ anyone else in a long time.
This is an excellent idea. It is right wing crap to suggest workers would deliberately go sick. There will always be a tiny number but the overwhelming majority would never do such a thing. I am a public servant with decent sick pay provision and have not taken any sick days this year (as I haven’t been sick!). The private sector will see similar stories to me and my colleagues. It is anti-worker drivel to suggest otherwise. If people take the piss, deal with them through the disciplinary procedures
I’m guessing you do not have employees? Trust me, the piss gets taken.
Ridiculous law and more smoke and mirror games by the shambles of a government.
Its all part of the FG plan, divide and conquer. And people wonder why there are no protests? We are all arguing over this crap while the country is destroyed further.
a strategy known as it’s “the roman circus”
Right wing crap ? Really , and are you aware of the appalling track record of some of the public sector levels of sick …for example the health system as highlighted in the following article recently to illustrate
..”Staff in the ‘other patient and client care’ category had some of the highest absenteeism rates across the hospital system, reaching 15.63 per cent in Drogheda. Nursing absenteeism rates meanwhile varied from 0.4 per cent in St James’s Hospital to 11.17 per cent in Lourdes Orthopaedic.
The place for the government to start tackling real abuse in the sick system is its own front door as the public service employer , by hurting RTE really small business with 2 or 3 people which this does is crazy timing as they are struggling far more in a recession
Not RTE…..should read The really small business
As an employer take my word for it, this proposal will cost jobs and increase demand on social welfare. Nothing will be saved by dept of social protection as in the case of my business the cost of sick pay will have to be made up for in reduction in overall pay bill by reduction in numbers or more part-time working.
BTW, this is regardless of whether the cases are genuine or people “take the piss”
This government are brain dead if they don’t realise how many small businesses will have to close if they persist with this lunacy .
This must mean that 42% of Business were always unviable and were merely existing because of the PAYE sector
have your say