Elon Musk‘s acquisition of Twitter has been one of the financial highlights of the year and the social media giant’s reform drew concern from Ethereum co-founder and chief, Vitalik Buterin, as the $8 monthly charge could damage the blue check’s anti-scam role.
Vitalik Buterin’s Take On Twitter’s Blue Check System
After buying the social media platform, Musk announced that he would make some changes. One of the most talked about changes is a new verification process that instead of giving the “blue Twitter tick” to active and notable users, the platform will be charging an $8 monthly fee.
Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin express his reaction in a tweet stating that it would damage the blue check’s anti-scam role. He emphasized that the efficacy of this system works depends on exactly how much due diligence is done to ensure that those behind the blue checkmarks are indeed who they claim to be. As defined by Twitter, the blue check is currently only available to a selected group of users. However, Vitalik Buterin’s concern about scams will be different if there’s more actual verification.
Vitalik Worries About The Increase In Twitter Scams
Vitalik Buterin has been impersonated on Twitter multiple times. The scammers are actively using verified Twitter accounts in order to trick unsuspecting investors. Scammers have evidently become more sophisticated in their attempts to go unnoticed by using verified profiles and replicating profile pictures, names and profile descriptions. Similar to Vitalik Buterin’s sentiment, many people expressed that the $8 verified badge would enable the scammers to exploit the new verification process. The $8 verified badge would be well worth the investment for scammers if it meant gaining the trust of others and being able to earn a lot more than they spent.
Contrary to the criticisms, Elon Musk tweeted that the proposed blue check system will destroy the bots. Accordingly, if a paid blue account engages in spam or scam, that account will be suspended thus raising the cost of crime on Twitter by several orders of magnitude.
