Elon Musk has posted an image of a shirt that pokes fun directly at people who believe the $8 fee for Twitter Blue is unreasonable.
The SpaceX and Tesla CEO took to his personal Twitter account on November 8, a day before the rollout of Twitter Blue, to post an image of a t-shirt that featured the following text, "Your feedback is appreciated. Now pay $8". The t-shirt also featured the blue verification check mark that has become a matter of controversial opinion, with some people agreeing with Musk on the impact of the new Twitter Blue service being a net positive for the platform, and another group believing the opposite.
When asked if Musk would be paying for Twitter Blue himself, he replied with the "100" emoji, indicating that he would be paying for it. The $8 paywall for Twitter's verification also comes with a slew of new features such as access to uploading longer video and audio content, the ability of monetization on the platform, priority in search and replies, as well as half the amount of advertisements.
Furthermore, Twitter will be using a portion of the revenue stream created by Twitter Blue customers to reward content creators. Assumingly the rewards will be through a system similar to YouTube's Partner Program, with additional donation/subscription features that will allow users to subscribe and donate to their favorite content creators.
Since Musk's t-shirt post-Twitter Blue has released, with accounts around the world signing up to receive their paid verification check mark and several other features. Twitter has rolled out an update to its Help Center on its website that explains the new definition of verification and the new rules around an account maintaining its check mark. The platform explains that it can choose to take away an account's verification check mark at any time, including any of Twitter's rules being broken by that account.
Additionally, Twitter explains that any account that signs up for Twitter Blue will not undergo the same review criteria as accounts that already have a checkmark and that Twitter's previous authentication criteria will no longer be used. Twitter has also rolled out new "official labels".