Twitter rolls out $8 blue tick service

Microblogging platform Twitter has begun to charge $8 for the blue check verification marks, the first in the series of revisions planned by its new owner Elon Musk.

Twitter on Saturday updated its app in Apple's App Store, offering those subscribing for $7.99 the blue checkmark next to their user names "just like the celebrities, companies and politicians you already follow."

According to the iOS notification, other benefits in the update include "half the ads", the ability to post longer videos to Twitter and priority ranking for quality content.

However, Twitter employee Esther Crawford tweeted Saturday that the new Blue "isn't live yet the sprint to our launch continues but some folks may see us making updates because we are testing and pushing changes in real-time."

The new update will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. "As soon as we confirm it's working well in the initial set of countries and we have the translation work done, it will roll out worldwide," Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.

He also replied to a tweet that the service will roll out in India in "hopefully less than a month."

This comes a day after Twitter fired half of its 7,500-people workforce, a controversial move that Musk said was necessary because there "is no choice when the company is losing over $4 mn/day."

He added that everyone who exited was offered three months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.

However, it is unclear how the new blue tick policy will affect the platform as concerns loom that Twitter could be swamped with fake accounts.

Earlier, the blue tick was offered only to high-profile individuals like politicians and celebrities, organizations and activists, who could prove their identity.

The sign was seen as proof of their identity and often helped followers identify them on the platform.

However, Twitter has not said how it planned to verify the identity of the user beyond charging a fee.

Meanwhile, Musk has also announced that the platform would soon have the ability to attack long-form texts.