Elon Musk has announced that only verified Twitter accounts will appear on the platform’s ‘For You’ recommendations page or be able to vote in polls starting April 15. He called it the “only realistic” way to address the issue of AI bots swarming the platform.
Musk, who took over as CEO of Twitter after purchasing the company in October, had last week announced that users with ‘legacy’ verified accounts would lose their blue ticks in April. This means that only users who sign up for Twitter Blue for $8 a month can get blue tick verified accounts. His latest announcement vests more power in these verified accounts.
“Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “This is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle. Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”
The announcement was immediately met with criticism that Musk brushed off. One Twitter user in the comments section of his post said that Twitter needed to invest in AI tech to detect bots on the platform. Allowing only verified accounts to vote in polls would tarnish the reputation of the platform, he opined.
“My prediction is that this will be the only platform you can trust,” Elon Musk responded.
My prediction is that this will be the only platform you can trustRelated stories
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2023
Several other users said that move would essentially render their ‘For You’ recommendations useless. “So the For You is not actually for me. It’s useless. Got it,” wrote one commenter. “Just delete the whole website man, you clearly had zero understanding of why it was valuable in the first place,” another said.
Last year, Musk had said Twitter would restrict voting on policy-related polls to paying Twitter Blue subscribers.
