Elon Musk’s attempts to change up Twitter verification as a move towards monetisation have been a fiasco.
Last month, Musk has had to reverse the implementation of Blue Verified, the paid replacement of Twitter’s blue tick verification system.
The reversal came after a wave of impersonators, whether for fun or malicious grifting, took advantage of the new system to trick individuals who think that the blue tick means an official account. Musk then implemented a grey check-mark system for official accounts, which was quickly removed again.
And finally now, Musk delayed the relaunch of Blue Verified “until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation”.
The Verge reports that at a meeting with Twitter employees last Monday, Musk outlined plans to encrypt Twitter direct messages, and work to add the ability to make voice and video calls between accounts.
Musk’s wishes that “It should be the case that I can’t look at anyone’s DMs if somebody has put a gun to my head,” are in line with his previous statements concerning privacy on the platform. More interesting are his plans to incorporate voice and video calls into the app itself.
It can be hard to discern which of the 50 things Musk tweets a day are determined plans and which are shower thoughts. But this change is in line with some of his statements about turning Twitter into an “everything app”.
One assumes that this means something like WeChat in China, where one app would be used to call, message, access services like shopping and delivery, and manage payments in general.
Implementing video and voice calling into Twitter is a move seemingly without much short-term reward for the company. It seems unlikely that simply having the ability to make calls on Twitter would pull people away from VOIP apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
However, the plans may make more sense in the context of broader “everything app” plans for the platform.
IOL Tech