If you’re a regular Twitter user, then you’re probably already aware of the recent goings-on at that social media platform: Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and the most tragically online billionaire in human history, has purchased the company for $44 billion, and is now in the process of molding the site to his vision. First up? A proposal to begin charging verified users $20/month in order to remain verified on Twitter.
As you can imagine, this idea has not gone over well with the vast majority of that crowd, virtually none of whom wish to pay nearly $250 per year in order to maintain their invaluable quality filters. This is particularly true of accounts that have millions upon millions of followers … like the one owned by Stephen King, which caters to a crowd of 6.8M.
Upon hearing the news, King offered up the following reaction:
$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) October 31, 2022
Called to task for this stance by a fan in the comments, King responds: “It ain’t the money, it’s the principle of the thing,” and we tend to agree! In addition to providing verified users with those crucial quality filters, the verification process also guarantees that the person claiming to be themselves on Twitter is who they say they are. The whole concept of verification lends a degree of reliability to Twitter, and if there’s anything Twitter does not need less of, it’s reliability.
Will King actually leave if Twitter’s new owner pushes this plan through? Will Elon change his mind? Might he, in fact, end up serving as the basis for a villain in an as-yet-unwritten King novel? Only time will tell, but for now – we’re with King on this one.
