Twitter’s New Feature: Locking Replies to Verified Accounts on X Posts

Within the realm of the Elon Musk-led social media platform X, formerly Twitter, users have now the ability to prevent unverified accounts from engaging in discussions on their posts. This new feature allows users to exercise greater control over the engagement they have on the platform.

Elon Musk has announced a change to Twitter’s verification process, coming almost a year after the introduction of paid verification through Twitter Blue. This update allowed users to obtain the blue tick by subscribing to the service for a monthly fee of $7.99. The proliferation of misinformation on social media platforms has become a growing concern for researchers.

It has been observed that individuals who do not subscribe to paid services may face greater challenges in countering misinformation. This situation is particularly noteworthy, except in cases where accounts are compelled to undergo a verification process. According to Social Media Experts, users need fact-checking and debunking tools because disinformation is spreading faster.

Check Out: Twitter Ranks as Worst Social Media for Climate Change Misinformation.

To address the growing challenges of harassment, trolling, and misinformation on social media, a proposal has surfaced. It suggests a potential solution: limiting replies on these platforms solely to verified accounts. This argument posits that by requiring users to verify their accounts. Verification can be done via payment, phone number, or even a government ID Document. As a result, the prevalence of these negative behaviors could be drastically reduced.

In spite of this, the adequacy of this argument is quickly called into question when one considers the ongoing existence of bots with verified labels. Verified accounts receive preferential treatment by X, making it easy to assess the quality of threads initiated by verified users. After X made the statement that this option would soon be available, Dave The Reply Guy enthusiastically called it “pay-to-win mode”.