Originally published at: Musk retreats on forced Twitter Blue checkmarks after celeb backlash | Boing Boing
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Wealthy and famous people don’t like to have things forced on them by corporations. You’d think the Galtian super genius would understand that.
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Looks like we are witnessing an ego that still doesn’t understand the word “No” …
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I’m pretty sure he does; albeit in the stunted and self-destructive sense of someone who cannot get enough of ‘owning’ whoever falls within reach; regardless of whether it’s a good idea or not.
Mismanaging Twitter would be a bunch of decisions far too fiddly and boring for the boy king were it not for his instinctive understanding that those decisions are upsetting people and he gets to make them anyway.
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Twitter will perpetually be in beta, maybe even alpha
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There doesn’t appear to be a QC department, so everything goes “straight to gamma.”
I am using the pessimistic version of Gamma Testing which is; “Release it to the customers, consequences be damned.”
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I don’t think Musk and Twitter is even anywhere near Alpha
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So the only way to win is not to play the game.
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Good grief, how many times has Musk changed his terrible money-losing checkmark verification program? I’ve lost count.
Strictly speaking, we have no idea - Elno has made changes to the system without actually telling anyone what they were, so it’s quite likely he’s made some changes and then altered them again before it was obvious what the changes were.
Not that this change really helps anything - he’s avoided lawsuits by celebrities for claiming they’re paying for a service that they’re not, but all the other problems remain (such as lawsuits by celebrities for impersonation). The basic functionality of the site is rendered pretty broken by the new check mark systems. The check marks aren’t for verification, they’re for promotion, and the fact that Elon Musk fanboy dipshits who don’t have anything worth reading are now, algorithmically speaking at least, on the same level as the most popular tweeters doesn’t help anything. For serious users, it’s still worth implementing a blanket block of all those with blue marks and then white-listing a few celebrities, if necessary.
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- Make stupid, ignorant, egotistical decision
- Deservedly fail
- Walk it back
- Repeat until bankrupt
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It hasn’t had anything to do with “verification” for a while, has it? Pay money, get an svg, that’s it 
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How about a nice game of chess?
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Elon Musk’s latest phenomenal innovation: Invisible Checkmarks. Pay $8 a month and you get a checkmark no one can see - everyone will surely praise you for being at the very cutting edge of fashion. (Also known as the Emperor’s New Checkmark.)
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Twat is as twat does.
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Yeah, I’m that old. Welcome to Boing Boing!
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Elon calls it sigma.
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Management by erratic, impulsive blundering must be EXHAUSTING for his employees.
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Paying $44 billion just to watch twitzer swirl down the toilet. Real gee-nuzz.
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$8
– Elon Musk
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OK. So if you get a check mark, you prove that you are not a robot. Now advertisers can hammer you with useless adds. If you don’t have a check mark, then you could be a robot, and why send adds to you? OK, I don’t want a check mark. Yes, I’m a robot. You don’t want to waste adds on me. Hmmmm… life is better without a check mark. Yes, I’m a robot. But, what if they start crafting adds for robots? Uh Oh!
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