Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took to Twitter to sound off about the platform's new $8-per-month verification service, arguing that it would make having public conversations with journalists and others more difficult.
"Wait … so if people can pay $8 to get verified, does that mean strangers can just pay to get into their mentions tab? Bc that will make following public conversations w/ journalists, outlets, & others almost impossible to track," Ocasio-Cortez said.
"IG [Instagram] has this issue and it's unusable in that regard," she added.
Such a system would be a "tool that's ripe for targeted harassment," the progressive congresswoman said in a follow-up tweet, especially of "women + others on this platform."
Twitter's new owner Elon Musk fired approximately half of the company's employees days ahead of the congressional midterm elections.
"I love when people complain about Twitter … on Twitter," Musk tweeted Thursday.
The platform's current system of using "blue checks" to verify an account's legitimacy will soon be discontinued for users who do not pay a $7.99-per-month subscription fee. In addition to receiving a blue checkmark, paying the subscription fee entitles users to early access to select new features, such as the ability to edit tweets and fewer ads.
According to the The Associated Press, the platform's current verification system has been in use since 2009 and was created to ensure well-known and public accounts are who they claim to be.
Some have expressed concern monetizing the check mark could lead to impersonators and the spread of misinformation and scams.
In his short time owning Twitter, Musk has already cracked down on impersonators, banning comedian Kathy Griffin on Sunday for changing her profile name to "Elon Musk" and not making it clear it was parody, according to the New York Post.
Griffin quickly snuck back onto Twitter using her late mother's account to continue trolling Musk, who responded she could have her account back for $8.
Many of the roughly 423,000 verified accounts under the outgoing system belong to politicians, businesses and celebrities, but a number of them belong to individual journalists, according to the AP. Reporters were verified so their accounts could not be used to spread false information on Twitter.
Musk pushed back against that use Wednesday, saying he wanted to promote the "voice of the people" and "citizen journalism" instead of publications that potentially have too much influence over the "Western narrative."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.