Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October and has since made many changes to the way the company operates. The billionaire introduced Twitter 2.0 with a set of new rules, including a subscription model to get that "solicited" blue badge. The move is seen as a way to make money, especially at a time when various major companies have stopped spending on advertising on their platforms.
Musk has also made many changes to the list of benefits offered to Blue Twitter subscribers. The social networking company has expanded its Blue subscription to several countries, and Musk has asked people to subscribe directly or indirectly to use the features.
In addition, Twitter's CEO is restricting many features to non-subscribers and moving them to blue subscriptions. In fact, that leaves only a handful of features for those who don't want to pay for Twitter Blue.
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Twitter recently announced that it no longer supports SMS-based two-step authentication for users who are not enrolled in Twitter Blue. Starting April 15, only verified accounts can participate in For You recommendations, he said.
Additionally, users now need a blue subscription to vote in polls, and recently AI can solve the "prove you're not a bot" test, so "the only social media that matters is paid accounts."
Two-factor authentication
Twitter recently announced that it will soon end support for SMS-based two-factor authentication for non-subscribers. As of March 20, Twitter users not registered with Blue were forced to disable text-based login verification codes for their accounts. This made it impossible to add an extra layer of protection to your Twitter account.
After March 20, 2023, we will no longer allow non-Twitter Blue subscribers to use text messages as a 2FA method. At that time, accounts that still have 2FA enabled for text messages will be disabled. Don't automatically single us out. We get the phone number from your Twitter account."
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Twitter added: "Historically a popular form of 2FA, unfortunately, we've seen phone number-based 2FA being used and abused by bad actors. We don't allow accounts to be registered via the /SMS method, they subscribe to Twitter are blue."
You need Blue subscription to vote in polls
Twitter is also making changes to polls. Starting April 15, Blue subscribers can vote. However, it is not clear if this applies to all votes or only those submitted by verified users.
Verified users show up on For You feed
Starting April 15, only verified accounts are eligible to appear in For You recommendations, Musk tweeted. He added that this is "the only realistic way to deal with the hordes of advanced AI bots."
Earlier this month, Musk said that Twitter prioritizes replies from accounts you follow, verified accounts, and unverified accounts.
Only paid social media accounts will matter
Musk recently said that paid verification would increase the cost of bots by 10,000% and make it easier to identify bots on the phone because AI can solve the "prove you're not a bot" test. Therefore, paid accounts are the only social media that matter.
Musk said these features are designed to combat bots, but putting them behind a paywall basically means he can get some money from non-subscribers before he takes over the company. This removes the free features.
