By VINCENT OWINO

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Twitter launched the ‘Twitter Blue’ feature mid last December introducing a monthly fee of $8 to use the ‘blue tick’ verification mark. The feature was initially meant to fight misinformation and fake news by impersonator accounts, but critics say its commercialisation will make such imitator accounts appear more convincing, resulting in disinformation and misinformation.

This past week Twitter removed the distinction between labels of accounts that paid for the blue checkmark and those that had it before the changes, making it even harder for users to identify imposters.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk maintains that verified users who will not pay for the blue mark will lose it. Already, The New York Times lost its verification mark on Twitter last Sunday after Musk reportedly learnt that the publisher said it will not pay for the mark.

Read: Twitter staff defy Musk ultimatum

Twitter CEO Elon Musk. PHOTO | AFP

Many notable personalities with verified Twitter accounts have also said they will not pay for the blue tick despite multiple reminders from the social media giant that they will lose the mark.

For instance, Kenyan journalist Larry Madowo said he and his employer CNN have “no plans” of paying for Twitter Blue even as the social media giant took away the check mark from some accounts.

“Even if I pay $8 to remain verified, anybody else can also add my name to their account and pay Twitter to verify it. So, this doesn’t solve the problem of impersonation. It makes it worse,” Madowo posted on Twitter.

Mixed reactions

However, experts interviewed by The EastAfrican do not believe that commercialisation of Twitter Blue will result in disinformation or thwart content moderation efforts.

The chairperson of the Bloggers Association of Kenya (Bake) Kennedy Kachwanya says the feature is a way for Twitter to expand its revenue streams but there’s no guarantee it will lead to the growth of disinformation on the platform.

“It might be that you can get identity theft here and there, but I’m not sure that it’s going to be more than what has been there. I think there’s a bit of exaggeration of what that would be,” Kachwanya told The EastAfrican.

He however says the subscription fee is a little too high especially for Africans and that journalists should “at least” be verified without being required to pay.

Twitter’s subscription fee is more than triple Netflix’s subscription fee in Kenya, which starts at KSh300 ($2.24) currently, and more than Google’s KSh800 ($5.98) monthly subscription for 30GB cloud storage space.

Read: Netflix loses subscribers for first time in more than a decade

Netflix is charges Kenyan subscribers $2.24 per month. PHOTO | AFP

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) , the Kenyan regulator that last year threatened to ban Facebook for failing to effectively moderate content on its platform in the country, says it is not worried by Twitter’s move to monetise the verification feature.

NCIC Commissioner Danvas Makori told The EastAfrican that Twitter has always been cooperative and responds promptly to posts flagged as inciting or containing hate speech or misinformation, and this isn’t likely to change with the monetisation of the feature.

“That’s a commercial aspect which for us, I don’t think is a problem so far and I don’t think it will be anytime soon because even if someone purchases that blue tick but still spreads hate and incitement, then we will still get them to suspend that account,” Makori said.