Twitter owner, Elon Musk on Tuesday said he plans to charge $8 a month for Twitter's subscription service, called Twitter Blue, with the promise to let anyone pay to receive a coveted blue check mark to verify their account. This comes after he faced criticism for his plan to charge Twitter users $19.99 a month to get or keep a verified account. In a tweet, the world's richest man said, Twitter's current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn't have a blue checkmark. He added: Power to the people! Blue for $8/month. Musk also reiterated the $8 price point and shared more details for his new plan. He said subscribers would get priority in replies, mentions and search, as well as the ability to post longer video and audio content while getting half as many ads as free users. Publishers that work with the platform will also get to bypass the paywall, according to Musk. This will also give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators, he added. According to CNN, the remarks highlight both how tenuous some of Musk's initial plans for Twitter may be and also the urgency he faces to boost the revenue and profit for a company that lost money for most of its history. Since completing the acquisition of the social media platform at $44 billion last week, Musk moved quickly to shake up Twitter, including disbanding the board and firing its top executives. While the blue check mark has emerged as a status symbol for users, it's also designed to ensure people can determine which accounts are authentic and which are not, particularly for celebrities, brands and other influential accounts. If Musk were to create a paid impediment for verification, there are concerns it could make it harder for users to detect whether a notable name is a bot or not.
