Elon Musk will no longer charge certain influential accounts for premium features on X, provided they meet specific conditions. However, these conditions also seem accessible to accounts involved in cryptocurrency scams. On March 28th, Musk announced that accounts with 2,500 verified followers will no longer need to pay for premium features on X. Additionally, accounts with more than 5,000 followers will gain free access to the Premium+ feature.
Elon Musk Takes a Notable Step
X offers three-tiered premium services for paid subscriptions, which include Basic, Premium, and Premium+ features. The X team is unlocking more features incrementally for content creators on their platform. However, the opportunity to buy verification on Twitter allows scammers and bad actors to easily impersonate influential individuals and deceive their followers into various scams.
To combat the scammers and spammers that thrived on the platform before his takeover, Elon Musk implemented a paid verification model on X, previously known as Twitter Blue. Regardless, the crypto community contends that X Premium features continue to help scammers reach potential victims more effectively.
While some community members appreciate Musk’s decision not to charge popular accounts a verification fee, skeptics point out potential loopholes considering the lack of information about the platform’s internal mechanism for ensuring suitability. Leading game developer Tyler Glaiel commented on the issue:
“So a bot farm could buy 2,500 accounts and then use them to verify an endless number of accounts, or have them all follow each other and then stop paying?”
A small number of users, while accepting the related costs, echoed Glaiel’s sentiments in speculating that the new feature could encourage large scam groups to collude and repurpose accounts for different types of cyberattacks.
What’s Happening on the X Front?
Some smaller accounts on X believe Musk’s latest move incentivizes the wealthy, while others call for other verified users to follow each other to claim free premium services, gaming the system. X is aware of concerns regarding verified scam accounts, having reduced pricing for verified organizations on the social media platform in early January 2024.
This move aimed to counter the numerous “gold check” accounts dedicated to promoting crypto scams. A recent CloudSEK report highlighted that malicious campaigns targeting X users with business and crypto scams were large-scale campaigns requiring a Twitter Gold account. Nevertheless, many believe the price reduction could be an attempt to gain more paid subscribers.
