According to the 2023 Africa Wealth Report, there are just 23 US-dollar billionaires today in Africa. If anything can rattle these 23 High Net Worth Individuals, imagine the impact it would radiate on others in the continent and across the world.
When a Nigerian in this exclusive category of 23, Tony Elumelu tweeted thus, ”…Woke up to see that my verification tick has disappeared. Wahala!” consternation reverberated across the system. Anything that can rattle and bring wahala (popular Nigerian parlance for trouble) to Elumelu would rattle many others a lot more.
Indeed many others including local and international celebrities have been shaken by the flip-flop policies of Elon Musk since he took over as CEO of Twitter
The latest is the policy on verification badges. The new verification rule for the microblogging app requires users in developing economies like Nigeria to acquire or retain their badges by paying between $8(N3,684.24) and $11 (N5,065.83) per month.
Many elites on the platform find this requirement awkward and quite unpalatable. Indeed, very little enthusiasm has been shown toward acquiring the new verification badge. This has led to the removal of verification badges from some accounts, especially from celebrities, who were accorded special status and privileges.
At the last count, the Twitter pages of Nigerian stars, Davido, Wizkid, Burnaboy, and Tiwa Savage, amongst others, confirm the removal of their blue tick badges.
Also, some Nollywood stars like Kate Henshaw, Toni Tones, Peter Okoye, Tobi Bakare, and many others were affected.
Granted, there are many benefits that revolve around having the blue verified badge on Twitter. For one, it lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic. Besides, accounts with a verified blue check mark rarely engage in misleading or deceptive practices. This is why a lot of people would like to have one.
The plan to fiddle with the issue of verification did not start now. Since October last year, Musk had promised that “the whole verification process is being revamped right now”.
The billionaire businessman had explained that the removal would allow more users to subscribe to Twitter Blue by paying the mandatory $8 monthly fee to acquire or retain the blue verification badge.
He argued that there are so many corrupt Legacy Blue ‘verification’ check so he needs to remove Legacy Blue in the coming months. Incidentally, all these announcements are followed with uncoordinated or disjointed implementations.
Musk will fix a date set for the blue ticks removal, then nothing will happen even when the date has passed. Then suddenly some high-profile users, including world leaders, politicians, celebrities, and journalists, will just wake up another day, just like Elumelu announced only to discover that they have been stripped of their special recognition.
Some with the legacy blue verification will notice that their marks had not disappeared,but rather had been appended with a new label reading: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.” The language, which shows up when users click on the check mark, makes it unclear whether verified accounts are actually notable individuals or simply users who have paid to join Twitter Blue.
The latest issues around the verification rumpus show Twitter is, probably unintentionally, creating confusion and whiplash for users over these changes. Regrettably, these are not just any users, but many high-profile accounts that have long been a key selling point for the platform. It also highlights how Musk has projected himself as a decision-maker guided more by whims than by any well-thought-out policy.
Twitter also rolled out a color-coded verification system with differently colored marks for companies and government entities, but Musk continued to say that individual users would eventually have to pay for blue checks.
By jumbling up the issue of account verification, the new label risks making it easier for people to scam or impersonate high-profile users.
Musk, has always presented the current changes to Twitter’s verification system as a way of “treating everyone equally.”
“There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities,” Musk said in a past tweet. However, as a shrewd businessman, the whole thing might be driven purely by financial reasons.
As one user tweeted, “Why should users be paying verification fees monthly? Are they changing their identities every month? Why can’t Musk fix a one-off verification requirement? Why can’t he look at areas like the number of followers etc. to rev up revenue? It is very sad that a man who came with claims that he wants to promote free speech is gradually taking away everything about freedom of expression from his platform”