Twitter recently declared it would begin removing the blue check marks from users and businesses that haven’t paid for its new, premium service, Twitter Blue.
The change was supposed to take place on April 1, but the only notable account to lose its legacy verification mark was the New York Times, which expressed its reluctance to pay after the announcement.
So why does this little blue check mark matter? It was originally supposed to denote users or businesses that were verified through Twitter, thus legitimizing the account for other users. If a blue check appeared next to their name, it meant that they really were who they said they were.
By purchasing a check through Twitter Blue, it allows users who shouldn’t be verified to pay and get the verification check – all while previously verified accounts, journalists, brands etc. lose it.
The decision to remove them likely came from Twitter CEO Elon Musk in a move that showcases both the inadequacy of his temperament to handle his platform and that through his pettiness he can occasionally do something funny. The self-proclaimed meme lord is now 1 for 3,000 on his attempts at humor.
But aside from Musk hitting the comedy lottery, his decisions as CEO have imperiled the future of journalism on the platform. The looming removal of blue verification checks would make the task of separating legitimate news from misinformation far more difficult – especially for users with a low level of media literacy.
That task is made even more difficult by the accounts that have purchased a blue check. These accounts at first glance can appear to be official sources and first glance is enough for some people. If this decision comes to pass it will be easier than ever for a Twitter user to pass off fake information as a reputable news story.
Combine that with the continued improvement of artificial intelligence’s capabilities and it’s a recipe for the destruction of any shared reality. Twitter will be crawling with deepfake AI videos of Buzz Aldrin saying that the moon landing was fake, Queen Elizabeth II saying that she had Princess Diana killed and George Bush admitting to planning 9/11.
Even elected officials have been fooled by misinformation before; there’s no need to make that problem worse. What will happen when Lauren Bobert accuses Oprah Winfrey of rigging the 2020 presidential election or claims that left-wing pre-schools are performing mandatory gender confirmation surgeries on every student?
It’s not hard to imagine U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Milledgeville, Georgia, on the floor of Congress accusing President Biden of helping former president Barack Obama hide his true birth certificate while holding up a printout of the supposed authentic version that reads, “Barak Husane Obamna Birthplace: Kenya, Africuh” written in crayon.
To avoid this future, Elon Musk should swallow his pride and return Twitter to how it was before his purchase or sell it. As it stands, it will continue to gradually worsen with every bad decision that Musk makes. He’d be wise to do one of these before his Saudi investors get upset and send henchmen to dangle him off of a balcony demanding their billions of dollars back.
It’s not too late Musk should call off the decision and claim that it was an April Fool’s joke. That would put him at an impressive 2 for 3,002, a huge jump for his joke ratio.
Frank Kidd is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from Springfield, Virginia.
