8 ms·
Twitter power users begin campaign to 'Block the Blue' paid checkmarks
- Flatcircle 3y agoThis is the strangest thing. Super wealthy, powerful people are upset about paying 8 bucks month for something they use all the time? Paying for the internet and social media is gonna happen one way or another, and the truth is, twitter provides just as much entertainment as films, tv and books, so I think it's warranted. To quote Nassim Taleb, "The sad truth is that, under near zero interest rates, it was not the advertisers who were paying for much of your social media & internet services, but investors." I got that quote from twitter btw.
- donmcronald 3y ago> Super wealthy, powerful people are upset about paying 8 bucks month for something they use all the time? They see themselves as the ones creating the value Twitter is able to sell. They’re probably right too.
- itsoktocry 3y agoI think Elon is explicitly saying no, they don't. And on this point, I agree with him.
- aorloff 3y agoThe question isn’t whether you agree with him, the question is whether the advertisers agree with Elon. So far they don’t Given that blue checks aren’t going to pay the bills, what advertisers think matters
- zamnos 3y agoGiven how much Twitter has been cut down in size and thus costs, how many $8/mo users would they actually need to cover costs? (of which they have several)
- r721 3y agoTens of millions apparently: https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1649599754903379968 https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1649599754903379968
- klyrs 3y agoAccording to the article, people are annoyed by the low-quality and scummy content posted by the new wave of blue-checks. Previously, the blue-check system was used by Twitter to curate content. Now, it's a low bar to boost low-quality content. Whether or not you like the outcome of the old blue-check system, what we're seeing is a large number of highly-followed users who are revolted by the outcome of the new system; and there's evidence that their followers are participating in the blocking campaign. Because they want to see the people who were previously boosted instead of the low-quality content. While investors may be paying for the infrastructure, it's the old blue-checks who were providing the value. The site needs both -- lose the infrastructure, you've got nothing; lose the value, lose the investors.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- augment003 3y ago[dead]
- BulgarianIdiot 3y agoWhen something is "super strange," the odds are you don't understand the situation, as is the case here. No one cares about $8/mo. The problem is that these people at large don't agree with how Twitter was changed under Musk, not technically, not politically, not managerially, not in any way, and they don't want to vote in confidence of it by having this checkmark on. And the checkmark is now associated with trolling and fringe rightwing behavior. Many of these people built their own audience on Twitter over the years, long before Musk decided to buy it. So they feel that's an investment they made in the site, and their followers are something they created, and Elon's Twitter is currently being only an unfortunate mediator of it, holding them hostage. So they feel stuck. They don't want to quit yet, hoping for a change (ALTHOUGH MANY HAVE QUIT), but they also don't want to encourage Musk and be seen to support his behavior and actions... which are frankly embarrassing.
- redeeman 3y ago> holding them hostage elon threatens to put them on the next starship test? get real, they are not hostages, there are plenty of alternative platforms, you have only to select one, or more.
- BulgarianIdiot 3y agoWhat part of "building an audience" was unclear to you? You don't just move a social network and everyone moves over with you. Maybe research "network effects"? In fact, exactly because there are PLENTY of alternative platforms, Twitter still exists. If there were only 2-3 major Twitter competitors, people WOULD move. As is, they don't know where to move.
- prepend 3y agoPlay stupid games, win stupid prizes. “Building an audience” on someone else’s platform is a recipe for continual butthurt. This is exactly what was said when Twitter and Facebook and whatnot started. If your business is solely on someone’s platform, you’re at risk. The proper, long term way to do it is to make a site, post content there and then post links onto social media while driving audience toward a mailing list or some other subscription that you control. It was only a matter of time that Twitter put the squeeze on and $8/month is just the beginning. I expect, over time social media will get to equilibrium of taking 30% of whatever the value of the audience is.
- genericone 3y agoSuper wealthy and famous people were previously "selected" by Twitter to receive blue checks, now that there is a transparent means to acquire it, they are no longer in that special select group. Being "picked" or "lucky" is part and parcel of being an actor or a journalist or a rich dude, there is no actual litmus test to be one. Blue checks didn't have a litmus test before... Elon made it 8 dollars. The elites balk at the idea their lucky status was reduced to 8 dollars. "I'm worth more than that!" is at play here.
- netsharc 3y agoYeah, it could be summarized as "It's not that I can't afford $8/mo, it's that EVERYONE can afford it!". If Louis Vuitton started selling their fancy-ass bags for, say, $20, all the rich and famous people would not be caught dead holding their bags...
- klyrs 3y ago> ...it could be summarized as... If you ignore what people are actually saying and assign them a motivation that supports a cynical narrative, you could summarize the situation that way. I'm not sure it's an intellectually honest take, but you can say whatever you think.
- netsharc 3y agoWell, you're right, it's a cynical take, but people have motives and then make their own excuses to satisfy others and themselves, e.g. some people not liking Obama and creating all sorts of narratives to not admit that "actually, it's just because I'm racist!" (I say some people and not all, some others may be non-racist and have legitimate reasons to not like Obama). > "I am actively rooting for the downfall of twitter," @dril tells me. "I hope to sabotage their efforts to become profitable, no matter how futile, in the hopes that they will eventually close up shop and release us all from this toilet." > "absolutely block on sight," @dril tweeted(opens in a new tab) back in November, when Musk's Twitter Blue first launched. Did he know it would be used for garbage content back then? Or, does the first quote sound like he has some other agenda? I mean, I'm on his side regarding the downfall, but if I read your other comment about this subject, it sounds like these Anti-Paid-Blue people are there because they want to fight for the survival of high quality content on Twitter, which is a bit obsessive, from my point of view.
- LinuxBender 3y agoPerhaps one option could be that the wealthy and powerful people pay $2k/mo for Violet checkmarks and us plebs can pay $8/mo for blue checkmarks. $1k/mo of that $2k goes to a 5013c charity of their choice. Then copy Discord and let people boost their profile and add other emoji like checkmarks. If a person boosts their profile enough they even get to add up to 3 icons from favicon [1]. /s? [1] - https://www.favicon.cc/ https://www.favicon.cc/
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lancesells 3y ago> Super wealthy, powerful people are upset about paying 8 bucks month for something they use all the time? As I understand it from the article: > But, @dril is far from the only big Twitter user to follow this new unwritten "Block the Blue" rule on the platform. NBC News reporter Ben Collins, Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic's Alejandra Caraballo, and countless other highly-followed Twitter accounts have already shared their intention to block all Twitter Blue subscribers. These people don't seem like they would be super wealth or powerful. > "Twitter blue subscribers are without fail the dumbest and most boring twitter users," Collins told me, moving on to the other, non-straight-up-hate accounts who subscribe. "I’ve gotten really good at being able to tell who pays for their blue check just by the quality of their replies to my tweets." That doesn't seem like being upset about paying 8 dollars. More like they are upset their timeline has gotten shittier since you can pay 8 dollars for more reach.
- ea550ff70a 3y agoYou are missing the point. There is no value to paying 8 bucks a month as the perks are a joke and real verification is not a thing anymore, so why even bother? Also, these power users are amongst the ones that create content and/or drive traffic that Twitter needs (for advertisers). There is zero incentive for them to pay for it. And this is without factoring in the ideological/political battle happening on the platform. The platform is just Musk's toy now and the only thing he is doing a good job at is at alienating and pushing away long term users with his shenanigans.
- itsoktocry 3y ago>There is zero incentive for them to pay for it This sounds completely backwards. They have to pay because they have to meet their audience where they are. It's how many nouveau celebrities make money. Some use every platform, pumping out vapid content to fans. They aren't going anywhere.
- anonymousab 3y agoThey don't care about meeting an audience, that's not the reason they use twitter; they create content for fun and for people who are interested to seek it out. If you offered them a flat "we'll force 10,000 people to see your tweets specifically for just $5" they still wouldn't take it because that's not what they care about or what they are trying to do. They are users of twitter just as much as they are creators and having their timeline flooded with the kind of content the new bluecheck users create has clearly given them a far worse experience, because the kind of people that would generally pay for the benefits your ascribe are generally the kind of people that these users don't care to interact with at all.
- itsoktocry 3y agoThey don't care about meeting an audience, that's not the reason they use twitter Justin Bieber has over 100M followers, and tweets nothing but announcements. He's advertising. For free. The idea that celebrities don't care about the audience they are reaching is utterly detached with reality.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mrtksn 3y agoThe problem is that Twitter is not pay to use but pay for privilege. I’m also in the camp of “pay for the service” but so far Musk was not actually able to figure out the product. In his implementation, Twitter doesn’t act like the telephone company which would not care who you are talking with and what you’re talking about as long as you’re paying the bills. Instead it acts like a match making service where we are matched to people who are overly eager for attention and willing to pay.
- maxerickson 3y agoThey aren't upset about $8, they just don't see any value in paying, and the change disrupted something they did value.
- papito 3y ago2022: "How dare the Establishment receive these blue checkmarks!" 2023: "Hey, Establishment, you are going to get the blue checkmarks, and you are going to like it!"
- mason96 3y ago[dead]
- iudqnolq 3y agoNote than in response to this coverage Musk banned the account @BlockTheBlue. To me this suggests insecurity.
- user982 3y agoHe's also forced blue checkmarks on people (including vocal critics) who didn't sign up for it, to muddy the waters.
- dmatech 3y agoThat account exists purely to promote actions that would result in the destruction of the platform on which it exists. Expecting a platform to host that kind of content is unrealistic.
- iudqnolq 3y agodang allows people to criticize HN as long as they confirm with the sites' general standards of behavior, for example.
- fzeroracer 3y agoMusk said he was pro free speech. That means including speech you don't like. So it should be more obvious than ever what he means when he says free speech.
- mrtksn 3y agoAll self proclaimed free speech advocates are free speech NIMBYs.
- MagicMoonlight 3y ago"You aren't entitled to a platform sweetie" "Just build your own critical infrastructure" How the tables have turned
- iudqnolq 3y ago
- mattl 3y agohttps://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Averified%20filter%3Ablue_verified&src=typed_query&f=live https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Afollows%20-filter%3Ave... This will show you who you’re following who paid for an account.
- mullingitover 3y agoSomeone's already started work on a browser plugin[1] to automate the tedious process of blocking what are now conveniently flagged low quality posters, but I recommend submitting feedback in the app reviews to ask that Twitter make this a first-party feature. [1] https://github.com/rlyshw/blue-check-blocker https://github.com/rlyshw/blue-check-blocker
- VeninVidiaVicii 3y agoAnyone know if there’s some kind of API calls I can use to block the blues? I think this is a fabulous idea.
- badwolf 3y agoFor the low price of $42,000 per month, you can access the Twitter API
- ashwagary 3y agoYou can detect blue checks using clientside JS and avoid the API altogether.
- MallocVoidstar 3y agoTravis Brown has a repo[0] listing all known Blue subscribers, regularly updated. I believe there's some libraries with reverse-engineered support for Twitter's private API that you should be able to feed the data into. (I've been reusing the keys for an old project; I believe if you didn't already register one, then official access to the blocking API endpoint costs $42,000/month.) [0]: https://github.com/travisbrown/blue https://github.com/travisbrown/blue
- cogitoergofutuo 3y agoI started blocking blue checks on sight a couple days ago and it has significantly increased the overall quality of the Twitter experience. I’ve found that I end up blocking accounts that I would have otherwise (weird culture warrior nonsense, low-quality Facebook meme reposts, an astounding number of people claiming that everyone spends $8/day on coffee etc.) and the check mark just makes them stand out visually along with putting their posts at the top of threads. Heck, until they disabled it there was even an entire tab of folks to block in my notifications section. Kudos!
- swyx 3y agobeing proud of having an endless stream of people to block when your blocking action has no meaningful difference to the new people that will take their place, and feeling that it has a "significant" impact... is probably exhibiting one of the known cognitive biases, i'm just not sure which (Ikea effect?)
- cogitoergofutuo 3y agoWho are you talking about?
- anonymousab 3y ago> when your blocking action has no meaningful difference to the new people that will take their place The rate of new users who don't subscribe to twitter blue will likely remain a much higher fraction than those that do, so if blocking them improves the experience, then rigging up an automatic block seems like a fairly low effort way to tidy things up. Naturally, you'll end up blocking a large amount of cryptobro posters due to the obvious overlap with Elon's supporter audience, which may be beneficial or detrimental depending on what communities you prefer. You can also simply hide all bluecheck posts with a ublock filter or a userscript, but that's more of a blunt hammer solution, and a bit janky depending on how new tweet loading and infinite scroll is working that day.
- rsynnott 3y agoHaving a very simple heuristic to block annoying people is a convenience, I would’ve thought. I’ve given up on Twitter myself, but I expect I’d do this if I was still on it; you don’t want those people in your replies.
- thinkingemote 3y agoPolitical activism based on consumerism and brand loyalty. Many users have invested themselves (time, friendships, network, money, job) in the twitter brand. They want to defend their investment. Many others haven't as much but might like to invest a bit of disposable money to gain a return. Twitter the brand benefits regardless. look how much it's users care for it.
- DoItToMe81 3y agoHow is a group of chronically upset internet losers news nowadays? Jesus. According to the stats in the article, a whopping 0.005479178% of the site at most have blocked people on Twitter. Big whoop.
- Ekaros 3y agoIf I were a twitter user, this might be even the reason to get paid checmark. Just imagine all the insufferable people filtering you themselves. Must drastically improve the user experience of anyone who has the checkmark.