President Biden reacts to Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., complained Wednesday that Twitter’s new $8-a-month verification process would make tracking public conversations with journalists and other outlets more complicated.
In a Twitter post, Ocasio-Cortez questioned if the platform’s new verification process means that “strangers can just pay to get into their mentions tab.”
Such parameters, she argued, will make following “public conversations” with journalists, outlets, and others “almost impossible to track.”
She noted that Instagram has a similar issue that makes that platform “unusable.”
She then argued that such a system would foster an environment of harassment on Twitter, particularly of “women and others.”
FOX Business Digital has reached out to Twitter. Its new owner, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, fired roughly half of the company’s staff days ahead of the midterm elections.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) departs in a SUV after campaigning with Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) on November 8, 2022, in New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The site’s current system of using “blue checks” to confirm an account’s authenticity will soon go away for those who don’t pay a monthly fee. The checkmarks will be available for anyone willing to pay a $7.99-a-month subscription, which will also include some bonus features, such as fewer ads and the ability to have tweets given greater visibility than those coming from non-subscribers.
ELON MUSK SAYS TWITTER WILL DO ‘LOTS OF DUMB THINGS’ UNDER HIS LEADERSHIP
The platform’s current verification system has been in place since 2009 and was created to ensure high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they say they are.
Some have expressed concern that making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee could lead to impersonations and the spreading of misinformation and scams. Musk has already overseen a crackdown on impersonators during his short time owning Twitter.
A blue verification check on the page of Twitter Inc. on a smartphone arranged in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Monday, Nov. 7, 2022. (Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
There are about 423,000 verified accounts under the outgoing system. Many of those belong to celebrities, businesses and politicians.
But a large chunk of verified accounts belong to individual journalists, some with tiny followings at local newspapers and news sites around the world. The idea was to verify reporters so their identities couldn’t be used to push false information on Twitter.
Musk, who often bristles at critical news coverage, pushed back against that use of the tool Wednesday, saying he wanted to elevate “citizen journalism” and the “voice of the people” over publications he suggested had too much influence in defining the “Western narrative.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
