Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
The Verge FTW: "A large part of Elon Musk's personality is being a troll."
Nailed him. 
This is how all media should report on him.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/23/23654206/twitter-legacy-blue-verified-checkmarks-april-fools-day
Twitter has announced that it’ll start “winding down” its legacy verified program and removing “legacy verified checkmarks” starting on April 1st, and is telling users to subscribe to its Blue subscription if they want to keep their blue check.
There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise. CEO Elon Musk has been promising to get rid of “legacy” blue check marks, or verification badges that were given under Twitter’s previous rules, since November, and he’s reiterated that they’d be going away “in coming months” several times. According to Musk, those verification badges were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” manner (though they are in fact quite useful for letting users confirm that the celebrities they’re interacting with are indeed the real person).
However, it’s also hard to ignore that April 1st is April Fools’ Day, the worst holiday, and that a large part of Elon Musk’s personality is being a troll. It’s extremely possible that this announcement, which came from the Twitter Verified account and not Musk’s account, is just an attempt to freak out people with legacy check marks. It’s a meme at this point that members of the press are overrepresented in the pool of legacy verified users, and these days Musk is clearly not a fan of the media.
It’s also possible that Twitter actually does intend to do this, and the date was just chosen as a troll, the way Musk likes to work 69 and 420 into almost everything he does. Also, it just added a huge banner advertising the change at the top of one verified Verge reporter’s timeline, so maybe it’s really going to happen.
-snip-
There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise. CEO Elon Musk has been promising to get rid of “legacy” blue check marks, or verification badges that were given under Twitter’s previous rules, since November, and he’s reiterated that they’d be going away “in coming months” several times. According to Musk, those verification badges were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” manner (though they are in fact quite useful for letting users confirm that the celebrities they’re interacting with are indeed the real person).
However, it’s also hard to ignore that April 1st is April Fools’ Day, the worst holiday, and that a large part of Elon Musk’s personality is being a troll. It’s extremely possible that this announcement, which came from the Twitter Verified account and not Musk’s account, is just an attempt to freak out people with legacy check marks. It’s a meme at this point that members of the press are overrepresented in the pool of legacy verified users, and these days Musk is clearly not a fan of the media.
It’s also possible that Twitter actually does intend to do this, and the date was just chosen as a troll, the way Musk likes to work 69 and 420 into almost everything he does. Also, it just added a huge banner advertising the change at the top of one verified Verge reporter’s timeline, so maybe it’s really going to happen.
-snip-
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
