What is going on with Twitter?
What IS going on with Twitter? The trouble that has been rumbling since Elon Musk was first interested in buying the social media platform has reached a height (of sorts) with the proposed selling of blue ticks. It might seem like a vanity, but for journalists the verification has, thus far, been pretty useful.
Allowing anyone to give themselves authority for the cheap, cheap price of $8 a month might also seem funny – the fake accounts that popped up when it was first launched last week caused mischief (and a few more serious implications).
However, when I and my colleagues are looking for sources for stories or digging into a subject, a blue tick is a shortcut to a level of trustworthiness. Knowing that, for instance, a charity or a spokesperson is verified gives the confidence to approach them for comment. To crowdsource opinions, it’s invaluable (although with the usual caveats of self-selecting groups!)
Does this matter so much in the food and drink sphere? Perhaps not a lot, but even on a personal level if I’m asking ‘Where’s good to eat in Berlin?’, I’ll look at answers from what I perceive as blue-ticked experts.
Their sale has been paused but will be relaunched, I hear. In the meantime, I’d love to know from the PR perspective and this is a genuine question, are you looking to Mastodon as a legitimate alternative?
What Lisa thinks…
“Two of my most hated expressions, ‘moist’ and ‘food porn’, appear in this press release from M&S – I read on and realised the former is permissible because it’s a ‘Friends’ reference but the latter does grind my gears, and puts me off what looks like a rather good product”
We're more than just a database
Sign up now and see how you can distribute winning campaigns every time.
