Bro what is elon doing????

Just a few more failed businesses and in about 50 years he'll be all set to run for POTUS as the Republican nominee.

Imagine losing your arbitrary blue check mark because you didn't buy enough ads on a platform that no one really uses anyway.

Someone was dropped on his head as a junior billionaire.

Wait, wait, wait, lemme get this right.

Problem: They were low or revenue. Response: Increase API costs

Problem: API costs are too high Response: People started scrapping Twitter

Problem: People are scrapping the site Response: Make users sign in to view tweets

Problem: People have to sign in to see any ads too Response: Tell companies that if they don't spend enough on ads they will lose verification.

I mean, what's next?

“Oh, ay, you got yourself a nice, beauty-ful brand over here. You got your followers, you got your eggs. Very nice. It would just be a cryin’ shame if somebody was to

impersonate it.”

The "X" stands for Extortion.

I'm sure the ego-less CEOs in large corporations will take kindly to being extorted. (/s)

Imagine what this must look like on the inside.

You're a software engineer at Twitter. You keep getting these weird tasks that you know are stupid, but you keep doing them just to see where the hell this bullshit will end up.

Man, if you ever have a social media site you need to burn to the ground, Elon's your guy.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Repeat.

If I were a business that is under threat of this, my response would be "ok.". No business that actually cares about its image should promote on a website that's filled to the brim with bigots and nazis

Sooo... blackmail/coercion then...?

"Be a shame if you lost control of your brand on my platform, be a damn shame..."

Twitter (ahem) "X" lost half its advertisers already. I don't think the site has the leverage to make such demands. If anything, it's going to push advertisers into the welcoming robot arms of Mark III Zuckerberg and Threads.

That'll bring your advertisers back

So Elon is now going for the severed horse head under the bedsheets approach to persuade advertisers?

That's a bold move.

Risky? More like suicidal. The Twitter brand hasn't so much been tarnished as blown to pieces by Elon Musk. If he thinks he's in a position to make demands of advertisers, when advertisers are already in life rafts heading for the shoreline, well, good luck with that. Have that band you're not paying play you off, because you're going down with the ship, and the advertisers aren't going with you.

South park couldn't come up with this level of "because x therefore x"

I heard that Twitter originally added verification because they were getting sued over imposters, so they added verification to delegitimize imposters and thus give less reason for others to sue them.

Now Musk is getting rid of verification en masse, so the original reason for the lawsuits will return.

Here's how to play it if you're a business who loses your Twitter verification:

1. Allow yourself to lose verification.
2. Make a backroom deal with some random person, have that person make a fake account for your business and buy verification. Have the person post some bad things under their fake and verified account.
3. Sue Twitter since they have verified the fake account and removed verification of the real account, and are thus committing libel.

So what is stopping the companies from just paying the 9 bucks for the verified status and telling the muskrat to sod off?

Seriously, why is it even a thing anymore? It's really sad that people are still even using the service. I understand the stories, because a train wreck is hard to turn away from, but why would you still want to be on board the train? Literally no one should be on that hellsite.

How to shut down a well established business under an year.

"I just reinstated a pedophile. Now pay me to put your ads on my SHIT" ~Elon "fascists are my best and only friends" Musk

This look more and more like a speedrun on how to bring down a well established platform in under a year.