Valerie Bertinelli, Stephen King and Other Celebs React to Elon Musk’s Proposed Pay-to-Play Twitter Verification
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Elon Musk has said he will charge users $8 per month for verification on the platform.
Elon Musk has officially taken over Twitter and is already starting to roll out changes.
The Tesla CEO has announced he would like to charge Twitter users a monthly fee of $7.99 to obtain a verified checkmark on the social media platform.
"Get Twitter Blue if you sign up now. Blue checkmark: Power to the people. Your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you follow," read a statement, per the New York Post.
That said, just the talk of these changes has been enough to irk many celebrities and politicians, and now they're speaking out against Musk and his decision to charge a fee for verified accounts.
Valerie Bertinelli–who initially began trending early on Sunday because she changed her Twitter profile picture to one of Musk–wrote, "The blue checkmark simply meant your identity was verified. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you. That no longer applies. Good luck out there!"
She later admitted that she didn't intend on going viral for the ironic stunt and reverted her profile picture to being one of herself.
"Okey-dokey I’ve had my fun and I think I made my point," she wrote in a separate tweet, "I’m just not a ‘trending’ kind of gal. Never have been, never want to be. Have a safe Sunday everyone! xo"
Stephen King also chimed in, first voicing his disgust in a tweet shared on Halloween that cited a previous report which suggested Must was seeking as much as $20 per month for verification, "$20 a month to keep my blue check? F–k that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron."
Musk replied, "We need to pay the bills somehow! Twitter cannot rely entirely on advertisers. How about $8?"
Musk continued: "I will explain the rationale in longer form before this is implemented. It is the only way to defeat the bots & trolls."
King then followed up with musk not once, but twice. First writing, "Kudos to Elon Musk, who has begun a revolution in how the world drives and who has incredible visionary talents. I got an early Tesla and traded for another one. Wonderful cars (no autopilot for me, thanks). That said, when it comes to Twitter..."
In a third tweet, King wrote, "Musk makes me think of Tom Sawyer, who is given the job of whitewashing a fence as punishment. Tom cons his friends into doing the chore for him, and getting them to pay for the privilege. That's what Musk wants to do with Twitter. No, no, no."
The representative of New York's 14th district, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also had some things to say, "Yo @elonmusk while I have your attention, why should people pay $8 just for their app to get bricked when they say something you don’t like? This is what my app has looked like ever since my tweet upset you yesterday. What’s good? Doesn’t seem very free speechy to me."
Mark Ruffalo wasn't afraid to comment on the issue, either, and responded directly to Ocasio-Cortez, writing, "Elon. Please—for the love of decency—get off Twitter, hand the keys over to someone who does this as an actual job, and get on with running Tesla and SpaceX. You are destroying your credibility. It’s just not a good look."
To which Musk responded, "Hot take: not everything AOC says is accurate"
In a tweet responding to Musk, Ruffalo backed up his point on why the blue checkmark is needed, writing, "Maybe so. That’s why having robust filters for dis/misinformation & credible verified users has been a popular feature for people & advertisers alike. We need those safeguards to make sure it’s accurate information, or the app loses credibility, as do you. And people leave."
Despite concerns, Musk still says he plans to bring the pay-to-play process to his platform, just not as quickly as he may have previously hoped.
According to a recent New York Times report, the Twitter CEO will not roll out the new verification process until after the midterm elections on Nov. 8.
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