Elon Musk’s X Offers Option To Lock Tweet Replies To Verified Accounts

Elon Musk continues to seek ways to encourage X users to pay a monthly fee for a verified blue check account, after advertising revenues at Twitter plummeted after his takeover.

The platform announced on Monday that users can now limit replies to tweets or posted, to only verified users.

This means that users can now block unverified accounts (the vast majority of users on the platform) from replying to their posts.

Advertising collapse

The move comes nearly 11 months after Elon Musk had first launched a disastrous paid verification outing for Twitter Blue.

Musk had first suggested a monthly fee of $20 per month, before settling on $8 per month after a notable online clash with the author Stephen King.

The initial launch of the “verified” service had been quickly pulled after a wave of fake accounts took advantage of the blue checkmark and impersonated politicians, business people and companies.

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for example was forced to apologise after a fake account with a blue check impersonating the company said the company would make insulin available for free – which was not the case.

This further scared off advertisers, over fear their brand names could be hijacked by impersonators.

Other brands were scared off when their adverts appeared alongside anti-semitic content.

Musk In July admitted that advertising sales for a massively debt-burdened Twitter is down 50 percent.

Reply limits

Now Twitter is allowing users to now limit replies to tweets or posted, to only verified users who pay $7.99 per month.

you can now limit replies to verified users pic.twitter.com/E2KStVd69B

— X (@X) October 9, 2023

It should be remembered that Twitter already prioritises replies from verified accounts.

There are concerns that this latest move could make it harder for those who don’t pay for the verified service (with the exception of accounts forced into verified status) to refute misinformation, which researchers and the European Union warn has continued to increase on the platform.

Some have suggested that limiting replies to accounts verified by payment, phone number, or even official ID documents could reduce harassment, trolling, and misinformation on the platform.

Last month during an in-person conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk revealed his intention to move X behind a paywall, and to charge users a monthly fee.

In July Twitter began requiring users to sign into the service or create an account before being allowed to view messages.

The platform also imposed a temporary limit on the number of tweets users can view, with unverified users limited to 1,000 tweets a day. Verified users can view 10,000 tweets a day.