Musk now says non-verified users will be visible on recommendations feed
SpaceX founder Elon Musk addresses members of the media during a press conference announcing new developments of the Crew Dragon reusable spacecraft, at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California on Oct. 10, 2019. (PHILIP PACHECO/AFP via Getty Images)
Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that non-verified users’ tweets will be visible on the newly retooled recommendations feed amid a slew of changes on the social media platform.
“Forgot to mention that accounts you follow directly will also be in For You, since you have explicitly asked for them,” Musk wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.
Musk’s response comes after he faced backlash from Twitter users for his initial announcement on Monday, saying that the “For You” timeline, the social media platform’s main recommendations feed, will be only available for verified users who are subscribed to Twitter Blue.
The changes will be made on April 15, according to his initial tweet on Monday.
“Starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be eligible to be in For You recommendations. The is the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over. It is otherwise a hopeless losing battle,” Musk wrote. “Voting in polls will require verification for same reason.”
“That said, it’s ok to have verified bot accounts if they follow terms of service & don’t impersonate a human,” he added.
The changes come after the company, which was officially purchased by Musk last October, announced on Friday that it will begin phasing out its old verification system on April 1 and start removing “legacy” verified blue checks from users who aren’t paying for them.
In order to keep their blue verified checks, users will need to subscribe to Twitter Blue, the platform’s $8 per month subscription service.
Twitter Blue got off to a rocky start in November after several accounts started impersonating public figures and companies, resulting in the company halting the subscription service for several weeks before relaunching it the next month.