Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ As Twitter Turns: Six More Stories from Pixel Place Adam Engst I don't like or use Twitter, but it's impossible not to gawk at Elon Musk's slow-motion train wreck (see '[1]Elon Musk Buys Twitter (Really) for $44 Billion,' 28 October 2022). Every story that comes out is such a master class in destroying a tech company that it makes me ever more grateful for the adults in charge of Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and the like. ([2]Not Facebook.) We may not always agree with their decisions, and they may occasionally venture into rapacious or morally dubious territory, but they're not loony. In contrast, here's the frogtwaddle that Twitter has engaged in over the last month, pulled straight from the headlines: * [3]Official: Twitter will now charge for SMS two-factor authentication: In November 2022, [4]Twitter attempted to relaunch its account verification system under the paid Twitter Blue label'only to reverse course after a prank tweet announcing 'insulin is free now' from someone purporting to be Eli Lilly and Company tanked Lilly's stock price. A month later, Twitter Blue relaunched again, this time successfully, although [5]few people have signed up for it. It costs individuals $8 per month ($11 per month if paid through an Apple in-app purchase). In a move ostensibly to give people an incentive to pay, Twitter said in March 2023 that it would limit the weak SMS-based two-factor authentication option to paid Twitter Blue users. All users would still be able to use more-secure authentication apps for free. If I were paying for Twitter Blue, I'd want the weakest method disabled to reduce the chance of account hijacking! * [6]Twitter is officially ending its old verification process on April 1. To get a blue check mark, you'll have to pay. Twitter said it would sunset the 'free' blue checkmarks offered previously to users it had verified'typically celebrities, athletes, reporters, and organizations'as of 1 April 2023 (not an April Fools stunt). That has gone as well as one would expect'[7]erratically and [8]with petulance. Organizations, in particular, have objected, as Twitter requires that they pony up $1000 per month plus $50 per account. Major newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times declared they would neither pay for Twitter Blue as organizations nor reimburse reporters for it. The White House also reportedly said it wouldn't enroll in Twitter Blue. * [9]Elon Musk painted over the W on Twitter's sign at its San Francisco headquarters, changing it to 'Titter': Ah, to be in middle school again. Perhaps it's an attempt to get Twitter out of the $3.4-million-per-month rent it failed to pay in December and January, eliciting a lawsuit from the landlord. Or maybe 12-year-olds are in charge, given that emails sent to Twitter's press address now receive an auto-reply with a poop emoji. * [10]Twitter Isn't a Company Anymore: Court filings in a lawsuit show that Musk has merged Twitter with a newly formed shell company called X Corp. The goal of these corporate shenanigans is unclear but may relate to [11]Musk's desire to create an 'everything app' that combines e-commerce, global and personal messaging, and payment. This parallels similar apps used widely in China, notably the Tencent Holdings app WeChat. Good luck on that in the current app, website, and payment landscape in the United States, Europe, and, well, really everywhere but China. * [12]NPR quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as 'state-affiliated media': For some inexplicable reason, Twitter initially lumped National Public Radio in with state-affiliated propaganda outlets in places like Russia and China. When queried, Musk admitted that he might have gotten it wrong'he revealed he knew nothing about NPR's funding model'and Twitter changed the tag to 'government-funded media,' which is also inaccurate: NPR receives less than 1% of its funding from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (Individual stations, which pay fees to NPR, and other public-radio networks and individual programs may receive more than 1% in funding from local, state, and federal sources.) * [13]Elon Musk admits he only bought Twitter because he thought he'd be forced to: This TechCrunch article focuses on just one aspect of [14]a rare interview that Musk gave to BBC reporter James Clayton. Initially, Musk had made an offer of $54.20 per share (it's a weed joke) for Twitter, but after the stock price dropped, he attempted to weasel out of the purchase. Twitter was about to take him to court'and likely win'which forced him to live by his weed joke. Now he says'I'm not kidding, but perhaps he is'that his dog is running Twitter. That would explain a lot. Can I recommend Mastodon? See '[15]Mastodon: A New Hope for Social Networking' (27 January 2023), and feel free to follow me at @[16][email protected], not that I'm a prolific poster. References 1. https://tidbits.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-buys-twitter-really-for-44-billion/ 2. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/01/meta-lost-13point7-billion-on-reality-labs-in-2022-after-metaverse-pivot.html 3. https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/17/23605073/twitter-blue-charge-sms-2fa 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_verification#Since_November_2022 5. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/24/twitter-blue-subscriptions-spendings-mobile-users/ 6. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-blue-check-verification-ending-new-subscription-april-1-elon-musk/ 7. https://sfist.com/2023/04/03/twitter-fails-to-remove-blue-checks-for-people-who-didnt-pay-only-removes-the-ny-times-check/ 8. https://apnews.com/article/twitter-musk-blue-checks-new-york-times-338cb27ac4ae5d1186613104c23fd8c8 9. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-painted-over-w-twitter-sign-san-francisco-hq-2023-4 10. https://slate.com/technology/2023/04/twitter-inc-x-corp-elon-musk-x-nevada.html 11. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-04/musk-says-buying-twitter-speeds-up-creating-an-everything-app?leadSource=uverify+wall 12. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label 13. https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/12/elon-musk-admits-he-only-bought-twitter-because-he-thought-hed-be-forced-to/ 14. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65248502 15. https://tidbits.com/2023/01/27/mastodon-a-new-hope-for-social-networking/ 16. file://localhost/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection .