Dem
51
GOP
49
Or, perhaps the operative movement here is "thud," rather than "bounce." On a day that's already got an awful lot of schadenfreude, we give you even more in the form of Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who continues to demonstrate that when it comes to running social media platforms, he's a pretty good auto executive.
Recall that, for many years, Twitter bestowed blue checkmarks next to the username of "verified" high-profile users. This made it much easier to determine if a message was from the actual pope, or the actual President Biden, or the actual LeBron James. Not too long ago, in an effort to recoup some of the billions he overpaid for the site, Musk announced that the check marks, instead of being evidence of some level of vetting, would be a perk that came with an $8/month Twitter Blue membership. This meant that, virtually overnight, Tom Cruise [checkmark] would go from meaning "This is Tom Cruise's real account" to "This account belongs to someone who wants to present themselves to the world as Tom Cruise, and is willing to pay eight bucks for the privilege."
Exactly how Musk thought this was going to work out, nobody seems to know. But the "overnight" arrived this weekend, and checkmark-ageddon was a disaster. Excepting Musk's adoring fans, virtually nobody wants to pay for the check marks. Not because of the $8, but because they make a user look kinda pathetic and desperate for validation. Prominent celebrities rebelled in droves, and said they wouldn't pay under any circumstances.
Pretty quickly, Musk figured out that it was a very bad look if Musk fanboys had check marks but nobody else did. It was strange that you could trust that @Joe_TeslaLover was really Joe TeslaLover, but that you couldn't be sure that @Joe_Biden was really Joe Bidem. So, the billionaire's initial move was to restore, free of charge, checkmarks to high-profile users who had complained about the situation, among them James, Stephen King and William Shatner. This caused that trio to complain even more, and to send out multiple tweets warning their fans that they had nothing to do with the checkmarks, and that only a loser would pay for validation like that.
This was a pretty bad look, too, so Musk ultimately made the decision to restore checkmarks to any user who has at least 1 million followers. This means that many, real, live active journalists and entrepreneurs and athletes and artists and others (say, Dan Rather, Travis Kelce, Jonathan Frakes or Katie Porter) do not have blue checkmarks, but Kobe Bryant, David Bowie, Chadwick Boseman, Anthony Bourdain and Jamal Khashoggi all do. This implies that the latter group is paying their $8 month, but this is rather unlikely since all of them are, you know, dead. Meanwhile, some of the living people who were granted checkmarks for free are threatening to sue because they don't want what is effectively a "loser" badge.
Who knows where this is headed, though it's certainly interesting to watch, ideally with some popcorn in hand, while Musk runs his toy into the ground. (Z)