Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has announced a new feature for the platform that will prioritize replies from people users follow, as well as verified and unverified accounts.
“In the coming weeks, Twitter will prioritise replies by — People you follow, Verified accounts, Unverified accounts,” Musk tweeted on Sunday.
According to Musk, verified accounts are much harder to manipulate with bots and troll armies, and the new feature will be implemented in the coming weeks.
“Verified accounts are 1000X harder to game by bot & troll armies. There is great wisdom to the old saying: You get what you pay for,” he added in the same tweet.
Musk’s announcement has received positive feedback from several users, who hope that it will improve engagement for larger accounts.
“ASAP please. So tired of the <3 month old accounts blathering at me. I enjoy discourse with real people with respectful dialog, but it is getting out of hand,” wrote one user.
Another user wrote, “Well, I’ve been paying for Blue since long before you took over, so I’m looking forward to seeing this happening!”
One user, however, wrote that this move is targeted at revenue generation and asked Musk to acknowledge it.
“Unverified accounts provide significantly more value but less revenue We understand it needs to be done, but acknowledge this,” wrote the Twitter users.
Musk, who is known to be quite active on Twitter, in no time replied saying that while non-advertising revenues are important, having a large number of verified accounts will also help clean up the system.
“Any true human can get verified. It’s only $7/month if bought annually via web (without App Store 30% premium). Yes, non-advertising revenue sources are important, so that this platform is not overly reliant on the whims of corporate America, but having a large number of verified accounts will also clean up the system. A single desktop computer can create thousands of fake accounts for <1/10th of a penny and the latest AI can get past any “are you human?” checks. The choices are either move to a verified system or social media becomes a bot/troll hellscape like FB,” he tweeted in reply.
Additionally, Musk has stated that Twitter will open source all code used to recommend tweets on March 31. He acknowledged that the current algorithm is overly complex and not fully understood internally, but assured to address any issues that arise.
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