Twitter launches new paid subscription

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Twitter began rolling out a contentious new paid subscription system on Saturday, which billionaire Elon Musk, the social network's unpredictable new owner, ordered staff to construct after taking over last week.

Days into Tesla CEO Elon Musk's leadership of one of the world's major venues for dialogue and activism, his promises and provocations have elicited a flood of responses, including warnings from the United Nations and an apology from Twitter's co-founder.

His intention to reduce content monitoring on the site has alarmed UN rights chief Volker Turk, who urged him on Saturday to make human rights a priority for the social network. "Twitter has a responsibility to avoid amplifying content that results in harm to people's rights," Turk said in his open letter. 

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He said that the news that Musk had fired every member of the platform's human rights team was "not, from my perspective, an encouraging start."

A day after Elon Musk fired approximately half of the company's 7,500 employees, Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006 and stepped down as CEO last year, posted an apology for developing the platform too quickly. "I realize many are angry with me," he wrote.

The company culture is changing in front of the remaining employees. Musk debuted his first major undertaking, a makeover of the Twitter Blue membership option, as early as last Friday.

According to reports, he warned his team that their careers were on the line if the revamp wasn't ready for potential activation by November 7 — the day before the US midterm elections.

The launch 

The new version of Twitter Blue, which Musk has indicated will cost $8 per month and will give users a blue checkmark and benefits like fewer ads in their feeds, started to be made available to users on Saturday through the platform's mobile app.

"Starting today, we're adding great new features to Twitter Blue," says the update, only on iPhones for now. "Get Twitter Blue for $7.99 a month if you sign up now." 

Esther Crawford, the head of product development for the California-based company, stated in a tweet that the new service was not yet available. "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," she posted.

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 Twitter team is legendary. 🫡 New Blue… coming soon! https://t.co/ewTSTjx3t7

— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 5, 2022

The service's current iteration, which costs $5, has premium features, including a more cozy reading mode.

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Although Musk has not specified how the paying accounts will be validated, the blue tick that has represented account verification up until this point will be added.

As a mechanism put in place to stop misinformation, verification has been free and serves as a confirmation of validity for the accounts of users such as governments, journalists, celebrities, and sports leaders. Musk has mocked the system as being run by "lords & peasants."

Other advantages listed in the upgrade include fewer advertisements and the capacity to broadcast lengthier videos and audio messages, all of which were addressed by Musk.

Ad spend suspended 

Due to its reliance on advertising, the California-based corporation has to diversify its revenue sources.

Several advertisers have reportedly stopped using the platform since Musk acquired it due to worries that his changes to content filtering will saturate it with hate speech and false information.

The mission of content regulation is still a top priority, according to Musk, who also claimed that the rules had not changed and that he would establish a council to handle it. But he also blamed "activist groups" for pressuring advertisers.

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"We did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They're trying to destroy free speech in America," he tweeted on Friday.

Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022

He claimed that the social network is losing more than $4 million every day, which supports the layoffs.

On Saturday, he committed that Twitter would develop, adding more practical sharing and search features as well as opportunities for producers to monetize their material.