Thread by @bmay

So if I don’t pay for #TwitterBlue no one will see my tweets or replies, despite Twitter saying my tweets got 88 million impressions this month, but a far right racist with 2 followers can pay to be seen. This is apparently democratising online dialogue.

Really @elonmusk?

I’m not talking about verification ticks. I’m talking about the features musk says only Blue subscribers will enjoy, like people actually seeing their tweets. The implication is if someone like @stephenfry didn’t pay, his tweets would be below a troll with 1 follower who had.

It doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t democratising to prioritise which tweets appear prominently according to willingness to pay. It’s the opposite. This is the point. At present, people get followers because people enjoy their tweets, not because they’ve paid for visibility.

Whereas paying to enjoy certain extras like longer video content posting ability makes more sense to me. But excluding visibility of accounts altogether is a recipe for disaster for the reasons outlined above and in some of the replies. @elonmusk

Can anyone explain it to me? If you don’t pay, your tweets are basically invisible. That makes the site largely worthless, as most won’t pay. If you pay, you will see tweets from others who have paid, but will miss good content from people who haven’t. It seems mad to me.

It isn’t about buying a tick, I have never had one, and it’s made no difference to all the engagement I get on here. It’s the fact that people who don’t pay are treated as trolls or bots, whereas it is far more likely the latter will pay to enhance their presence here. It’s mad.