Twitter CEO Elon Musk said he will drop his price to have a verification symbol on the platform from $20 to $8 after complaints from users. .“Power to the people!” said Musk in a Tuesday tweet. .“Blue for $8/month.”.Musk said price will be “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.” .He said verified users will have priority in replies, mentions, and searches, which is essential to defeat spam and scams. He added these people will have the ability to post long videos and audio. .Verified users will have half as many ads. There will be a paywall bypass for publishers who work with Twitter. .Musk said this approach will “give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators.”.“There will be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, which is already the case for politicians,” he said. .His Twitter bio has been changed to Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator. .NDP MP Peter Julian said Monday Musk’s takeover of Twitter promotes hate and disinformation. .“We’ve seen Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and deliberate promotion of him himself of appalling disinformation around the attack of Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi’s husband,” said Julian. .Julian called Fox News hosts “crazed extremists.” He said CBC has journalistic integrity. .Musk said Monday he plans to eliminate one-quarter of the company’s workforce in his first round of layoffs and vowed to require users to pay to have a verified account. .READ MORE: Musk to lay off one-quarter of Twitter staff, charge for blue check mark.Musk allegedly issued an ultimatum to Twitter’s engineers, telling them to revamp its verification system in about one week or be terminated.
