An internal Twitter log shows that more than 140,000 accounts had signed up for the new Twitter Blue as of November 10

The social media service, which is undergoing changes from its new owner Elon Musk, has descended into a messy swirl of spoof messages and parody accounts.

New York Times 2022-11-12

Context & Ripple Effects

Twitter Blue’s rollout was already unsettled: a product lead had said users were seeing changes as the company tested and pushed updates in real time. The early paid-account total matters because the service was being positioned amid a flood of spoofing, and Twitter subsequently paused signups before a planned relaunch designed to address fake verified accounts.

Later coverage puts the initial uptake in perspective: an analysis found that the early subscriber pool included spoof accounts and many far-right influencers, while a later estimate found Blue used by less than 1% of monthly users. The issue is therefore not simply subscription volume, but whether paid status can function as a trusted identity signal.

First-order effects

More than 140,000 Twitter accounts had entered the new Blue program, giving Twitter an immediate paid-user base while spoof and parody accounts muddied the meaning of its verification-related features.
Twitter users and organizations faced a less reliable at-a-glance authenticity cue as paid accounts appeared alongside impersonators during the rollout.

Second-order effects

The spoofing fallout forced Twitter to pause new Blue signups and prepare a revised rollout, interrupting the company’s attempt to convert verification into a subscription product.
The early subscriber mix documented in the subsequent analysis of Blue’s first paying accounts made subscriber quality—not only total signups—a central measure of the product’s value to Twitter.

Third-order effects

If paid identity features repeatedly require pauses and redesigns to control impersonation, social platforms will have to treat verification as a trust-and-safety system rather than a standalone subscription perk.
The later low conversion estimate for Blue’s promo traffic suggests that broad subscription revenue on a social network depends on a value proposition stronger than access to a badge or status signal.

The trend: Social platforms are testing subscriptions as a new revenue layer, but tying payment to identity and visibility makes trust controls central to the product.

Discussion

Vox Rani Molla on x
Elon Musk, master businessman, can't make up his mind
@emilygorcenski Emily Gorcenski on x
The absolute business genius to trade a $5B annual advertising revenue stream for a $13M one. https://twitter.com/...
@golikehellmachi @golikehellmachi on x
lol, i don't think $1M/mo is going to cover the ad losses https://twitter.com/...
@caseyho @caseyho on x
Launching a product that brings in one million dollars in new revenue while likely damaging advertiser brands to the tune of billions of dollars of market cap is the literal definition of penny-wise and pound foolish. https://twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
@jasonschreier ... previous version of Blue had a little over 100K. so the needle hardly moved
@daddyhope @daddyhope on x
@elonmusk That is why @jack and his team made a distinction with the Blue check, which you now say was a corruptly obtained product in your propaganda. Now we have to do guess work, and brands are being damaged including your beloved @Tesla through impersonation. Anyway, you own …
@lordravenscraft Eric Ravenscraft on x
at $8 a pop, 140k accounts would result in...a little over $1.1 million this is not much money! https://twitter.com/...
@annmlipton @annmlipton on x
“As of Friday afternoon, her Twitter display name read simply ‘fart.’” Every reporter trying to capture the events unfolding on Twitter is either in hell or living their best life https://www.nytimes.com/...
@tomgara Tom Gara on x
This makes me think the actual market for paid twitter subs must be many millions https://twitter.com/...
@neolithicsheep Shepherd on x
The question of course is how many of these will be retained and how many will drop off having had their fun with impersonation https://twitter.com/...
@patrickw Patrick W. Watson on x
For perspective, Twitter needs something like 15 *million* $8/mo paid users just to break even. And that's assuming they keep all current ad revenue, which seems unlikely. https://twitter.com/...
@barry Barry Petchesky on x
According to this Twitter has made about $1.1 million selling blue checks so far, which given their debt service is basically the same as zero dollars. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
@CaseyNewton ... is this a total count of the previous 100,000 and new sign ups? This new sub is separate to the existing one in terms of billing and price, so I was reading it as 140K on top of the 100K
@alex @alex on x
$13.4M ARR at $8/month https://twitter.com/...
@marypcbuk Mary Branscombe on x
billion users is going to take some time at this rate https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp @martinsfp on x
Not a bad start. And a very ‘Twitter’ number. Now if only it wasn't such a bad implementation... https://twitter.com/...
@robiox_us @robiox_us on x
were ading sex to roblox
@stevekovach Steve Kovach on x
Is it the media's fault Omnicom recommends pausing Twitter ads due to high-profile resignations and mass layoffs that are causing concerns around Trust and safety? Did the media cause those departures? Or was it Musk's decisions? https://www.theverge.com/...
@kimcrayton1 @kimcrayton1 on x
Intention WITHOUT strategy is CHAOS...although I believe the CHAOS is intentional 😢 https://twitter.com/...
@film_girl @film_girl on x
Lol. This is a big deal and I bet Elon doesn't even known what Omnicom is. https://twitter.com/...
@reckless Nilay Patel on x
welcome to hell, the agencies are openly saying you lost control of the platform
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@MKBHD I just killed it
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
As Twitter pursues the goal of elevating citizen journalism, media elite will try everything to stop that from happening
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens will cause them to be more accurate, as their oligopoly on information is disrupted
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include “parody” in their name, not just in bio
@mkbhd Marques Brownlee on x
Update: It's now gone https://twitter.com/...
@jasonschreier Jason Schreier on x
Can't imagine why all the advertisers are pulling out of Twitter lmao https://twitter.com/...
@mkbhd Marques Brownlee on x
So now there's two verified checks. One that shows next to your profile in replies, in retweets, and everywhere else: It means you're a Twitter Blue subscriber. The other one ("Official") only shows up on certain profiles and on tlmeline...... https://twitter.com/...
@dieworkwear Derek Guy on x
https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
We're adding a “Parody” subscript to clarify
@donie Donie O'Sullivan on x
Twitter has verified Jesus Christ. h/t @Shayan86 https://twitter.com/...
@misterratt Matt Ratt on x
Twitter Blue is going about as well as everyone predicted, and it's an amazing spectacle to watch. Like a train crash filled with glitter. https://twitter.com/...
@theofficialword Jarrod Murray on x
Going great https://twitter.com/...
@zoeschiffer Zoë Schiffer on x
The announcement was posted on Slack: “An update on what we did tonight: hid the entry point to Twitter Blue, added the ‘official’ label for ONLY advertisers. Note: here is at least one way for users to sign up for Blue. Legacy Blue users can go to subscriptions and upgrade” 2/
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
I see the “verification” system is going juuuuuuuuuuuust great. https://twitter.com/...
@geoffreyfowler Geoffrey A. Fowler on x
Would the real @EdMarkey & @blaireerskine please stand up? In a @washingtonpost test, I got imposter versions of the senator & comedian “verified” blue check marks (w/ their permission). All it took was $8 and a spare phone. Twitter never challenged it: https://www.washingtonpost…
@loupas @loupas on x
Dear @elonmusk In the 14 days you've been “chief twit” you've severely damaged @twitter, some think irrevocably. I hope that's not true, but, increasingly, I fear it is. It's clear that leading Twitter is not among your many talents. I would like to offer five suggestions: 🧵
@octal Ryan Lackey on x
Thank you Elon, it has all been worth it for this. https://twitter.com/...
@jeremypeppas Jeremy Peppas on x
Some enterprising tech writer, @TaylorLorenz or @CaseyNewton maybe, should do a story in the absolute panic that has set in at some federal/state agencies about the twitter meltdown. Many are limited on social to only Twitter and their primary outreach tool is a mess.
@hardin Brandon Hardin on x
elon basically forcing brands to tweet things like “we're sorry you ever thought insulin could be free,” incredible scenes https://twitter.com/...
@thebrianmcmanus Brian McManus on x
DojaCat is my celebrity crush because she is fucking hilarious [Image of Doja Cat parodying Elon Musk on Twitter]
@bennyjohnson Benny Johnson on x
One way to potentially decrease the frequency of this could be to subject newly subscribed Twitter Blue users to a 24 hour review time for a name change and profile picture change (only if they change both) so they can be approved to prevent it. https://twitter.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
Last night as parody brand accounts tweeted about Tesla using child labor and SpaceX ceasing missions, engineers were frantically trying to rush out a change to put an “official” label on important accounts. “Request is from Elon,” one manager wrote. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@green_footballs Charles Johnson on x
Musk is now restoring the verified badges of outright Nazis. That's sure to inspire advertiser confidence. https://twitter.com/...
@alanisnking Alanis King on x
Can you imagine spending $44 billion to do this to yourself https://twitter.com/...
@akiperitz Aki Peritz on x
This tweet has been up for 16 hours. Something something something brand reputation https://twitter.com/...
@emilygorcenski Emily Gorcenski on x
I love how I'm the one who broke this story and haven't received a single h/t https://twitter.com/...
@chadfelixg Chad Felix Greene on x
It would help if verified journalists AND organizations/news sites weren't permitted to block without good reason decided by a team at Twitter. As it stands now, most have already insta or pre-blocked anyone who has or would challenge their narratives. https://twitter.com/...
@cleoabram Cleo Abram on x
as an independent journalist, I'm all for increased competition in news! ... you still need to be able to verify identity as a way to signal trustworthiness. that's not a “big media” problem. https://twitter.com/...
@justin_fenton Justin Fenton on x
what are you TALKING about https://twitter.com/...
@rakeshlobster Rakesh Agrawal on x
Great thread from a brand marketer. My product mantra has always been Technology + Psychology = Great products. But the proportions vary. For mass market consumer products, psychology is more important. https://twitter.com/...
@mehdirhasan Mehdi Hasan on x
Yes it's the ‘media elite’ that's causing all the chaos on this site right now and forcing mass resignations and possible bankruptcy at Twitter. (Also, forgive me, but I'd argue the multibillionaire owner of Twitter counts as part of any 'media elite.') https://twitter.com/...
@joycewhitevance Joyce Alene on x
This is disturbing. Twitter plays an important role in our public discourse. When it makes a mistake, as it has with the new blue check policy, it needs to take corrective active. Mistakes happen. Leaders earn the trust of people on their platform by owning & correcting them. htt…
@baddiel David Baddiel on x
It is a key thing now that even the most elitist of the elite is not in their own minds a member of the elite. https://twitter.com/...
@geoffreyfowler Geoffrey A. Fowler on x
@EdMarkey ... My test took 15 min. For faux @blaireerskine, I set up an account that replaces the lowercase L in her name with an uppercase I. For @EdMarkey I added “real” to his name. Twitter never challenged why I was “verifying” names identical to public figures. https://www.w…
@zoeschiffer Zoë Schiffer on x
NEW: Twitter has suspended the launch of Twitter Blue and is actively trying to stop people from subscribing “to help address impersonation issues,” per an internal note. 1/
@rafaelshimunov @rafaelshimunov on x
Did Twitter Blue tweet just cost Eli Lilly $LLY billions? Yes. https://twitter.com/...
@hotcyder @hotcyder on x
The plan? Allow users to register verified parody accounts for $8, and then ban them for breaking TOS a day later, keeping the $8 https://twitter.com/...
@pcalcado @pcalcado on x
I'm thinking about the many, many amazing talks and case studies Twitter engineering published over the last decade about how insane was it to keep the site up during World Cups. Well, guess what starts in about a week?
@rj_gallagher Ryan Gallagher on x
Also: We're told Musk laid off an entire information security team at Twitter that oversaw sharing of user data with advertisers & research partners, a move that triggered internal concerns about vulnerability to security threats & potential violations of FTC rules.
@rossrubin Ross Rubin on x
The Twitter Bluehaha may be one of the silliest self-inflicted crises I've ever seen. Just make the paid badge different and keep both or design a new one and retire the old. The only reason to replace the verified badge with a paid one is to sow confusion and sell authority.
@ijustine @ijustine on x
Omg it worked. And I only had to pay $150k for this new badge!!!!!! https://twitter.com/...
@iiiitsandrea @iiiitsandrea on x
bought $8/blue checks about to become a brand's WORST nightmare 👀 this isn't Coca Cola, but this screenshot alone tells you otherwise https://twitter.com/...
@themaxburns Max Burns on x
Earlier today I saw fake-but-verified airline customer support accounts asking Twitter users who were reaching out to *legit* airlines to DM them for help. This is asking for trouble once the scammers start stealing ticket/financial info.
@kt_so_it_goes @kt_so_it_goes on x
“we'll simply get 3 billion people to sign up” https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@nickbilton Nick Bilton on x
A short thread about Blue Check Marks. In the early days of Twitter, waaaaaaaay before the celebs and the crypto bros and the pundithinkfluencers were on here, part of the fun of the platform was the fake accounts.
@nickbilton Nick Bilton on x
There was @DarthVader and @God and countless others — and they were amazing. It didn't take long before the fun accounts became parody fake accounts of real people.
@oneunderscore__ Ben Collins on x
A lot of people on this site who spent the last three years making a bunch of money calling content moderation a censorious communist plot got impersonated once this week and are now desperate for some of that content moderation.
@faizsays Faiz Siddiqui on x
Some of Twitter's own staff couldn't tell parody accounts from real ones, three people said, because Twitter's internal tools didn't yet distingush between legacy and Twitter Blue verified accounts. Accounts simply showed up as “verified” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@nickbilton Nick Bilton on x
(Fun aside: the fake accounts actually ended up luring the *real* celebs to Twitter. Someone started a fake Shaq account, and when real Shaq heard about it, he signed up as @the_real_shaq. This also led to lots of famous people putting “Real” in their username — ahem, Donald.)
@film_girl @film_girl on x
This is the most 2007 take I've ever seen on this website. A website I have been on since 2007. https://twitter.com/...
@badastronomer @badastronomer on x
If I owned a big corporation (and I were evil) then I would think spending $8 for a burner account to make my competitor lose millions/billions might be a good investment. I can't imagine the Feds aren't rallying their troops to investigate Elon and Twitter now. https://twitter.c…
@dcseifert Dan Seifert on x
“A verified account purporting to be Rudy W. Giuliani also had a message for its followers: “I'd like to announce I shidded."" https://nymag.com/...
@nickbilton Nick Bilton on x
(Last note: One possible solution to the Blue Check Marks For All is to make a system where people are verified as being who they say they are, and when they get a blue badge they can no longer change their account name... but that would cost a lot more than $8 to implement.)
@nickbilton Nick Bilton on x
In 2009 it became kind of an epidemic, if you will, on Twitter. There was a fake Kanye (Ye was not happy about it!) and then there was a fake Tony La Russa (the St. Louis Cardinals manager) and he was so pissed he decided to sue Twitter...
@emilybell Emily Bell on x
A high school sophomore from 2007 called and wants their B grade essay back https://twitter.com/...
@nickbilton Nick Bilton on x
Anyway, where Twitter screwed up, was that over time being verified became a form of online feudalism, where there were the Check Mark People, and those rest of surfs who couldn't get verified.
@alexstamos Alex Stamos on x
I think it would be hard to tank the economy, but if the Lazarus Group has a backstopped option account somewhere Twitter-powered stock manipulation might be an entertaining way to make their quarterly contribution to the ICBM fund instead of just crypto scams and ransomware. htt…
@courtneymilan @courtneymilan on x
Imagine sleeping in your office to deliver a feature that destroys the platform and then less than a week later gets rolled back. https://twitter.com/...
@tomcoates Tom Coates on x
What happens next is they start putting in blacklists of unacceptable names for people to call their accounts. Then someone explains to them that a capital “i” looks exactly like an l. Then they start saying that parody isn't okay either.
@tomcoates Tom Coates on x
This was called “verification” and it was on lots of people's accounts. All users understood “verification” and the blue tick that came with it. The best way to solve this problem is to stop letting people buy fake verification blue ticks. https://twitter.com/...
@michaeldweiss Michael Weiss on x
Comedy is indeed back on this site. https://twitter.com/...
@reckless Nilay Patel on x
He's about 90 minutes away from posting the man in the arena, I can just feel it
@fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x
This constant cry of “elites!!!!!” from the world's richest man suggests such deep insecurity. Dude, there's literally nobody more elite than you, you can crash any party you like by simply buying the venue. It's the worst when elites think they're Everyman https://twitter.com/..…
@parkermolloy Parker Molloy on x
Think about how easy it would be for people to short stocks this way. https://twitter.com/...
@zoeschiffer Zoë Schiffer on x
“Note 2: Existing Blue subscribers will still have access to their Blue features.” 3/
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
for eight bucks and a few logo png files you can shave millions in market cap off an entire sector's stock price https://t.co/WGJypdPVAY
@mikesington Mike Sington on x
The chaos continues. Twitter pulls the plug on Twitter Blue, subscriptions and paid-for verification blue checkmark no longer available.
@sherman4949 Alex Sherman on x
I say this sincerely: @elonmusk would do well spending 3 months at a major media organization to better understand the motivations of mainstream media. Unpaid internship, maybe? https://twitter.com/...
@spacexofficiall @spacexofficiall on x
Just found out NASA got further in to space than we ever have in like, the 70s?! What the fuck are we doing over here
@ajbauer A.J. Bauer on x
That Eli Lilly prank changed the Twitter game: New goal isn't getting more and more people to laugh at terrible puns, it's getting Elon Musk sued by bigger and bigger multinational corporations until he files for bankruptcy.
@cloud_opinion @cloud_opinion on x
you are too humble Elon. Twitter blue has given us Jesus Christ, George Washington and free insulin for life from Eli Lily. Its going amazing. https://twitter.com/...
@leakissner Lea Kissner on x
I've made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I've had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I'm so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we've done. I'm looking forward to figuring out what's next, starting with my reviews for @USENIXSecurity 😁
@robinw @robinw on x
I'm still here.
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
Plot twist! I'm told while Wheeler did indeed resign earlier today, Elon convinced her to stay. https://twitter.com/...
@pkafka Peter Kafka on x
The thing about the ad business is that it's a service business, and it's hard to run a service business if there's no one around to provide the service. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@keithboykin Keith Boykin on x
“The world is watching the world's richest man single-handedly destroy one of the world's most powerful and important communication platforms.” It's like the “Titanic” with “everyone looking for lifeboats, said one recently laid-off Twitter employee. https://www.cnn.com/...
@timobrien Tim O'Brien on x
The world is watching the world's richest man destroy one of the world's most powerful and important communication platforms, just weeks after acquiring it for $44 billion. And the world is watching the debacle unfold on Twitter. Via ⁦@oliverdarcy⁩ https://www.cnn.com/...
@ronbrownstein Ronald Brownstein on x
“This hellscape is going to get more hellish. More hate speech and harassment. More deception and impersonation. More privacy and security risks for all of us. We would once again tell advertisers to jump ship, but at this point, no CMO in their right mind needs that advice.” htt…

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