Starting August 7th, advertisers that haven’t reached certain spending thresholds will lose their official brand account verification. According to emails obtained by the WSJ, brands need to have spent at least $1,000 on ads within the prior 30 days or $6,000 in the previous 180 days to retain the gold checkmark identifying that the account belongs to a verified brand.
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Threatening to remove verified checkmarks is a risky move given how many ‘Twitter alternative’ services like Threads and Bluesky are cropping up and how willing consumers appear to be to jump ship, with Threads rocketing to 100 million registrations in just five days. That said, it’s not like other efforts to drum up some additional cash, like increasing API pricing, have gone down especially well, either. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton — let’s see if it pays off for him.
Bro what is elon doing????
At this point, I'd say: Providing entertainment to the internet while also helping grow the fediverse
I think the combination of sheer incompetence and his overlord bosses wanting to kill Twitter. Which is wild to me, since it could have been used as a propaganda tool for him ultimately worth more than the money he paid for it, despite the ‘worth’ of the company. The guy lives in a bubble with yes men surrounding him. He is the epitome of the meme “is it me that’s wrong? - no everyone else is out of touch”.
A right-wing propaganda tool needs people outside of the right wing to look at it. He’s far too embedded into that space to be able to appeal to other groups.