Fox 29: Nick Mattar on Twitter Blue
Twitter is once again attempting to launch its premium service, a month after a previous attempt failed. The social media company said Saturday it would let users buy subscriptions to Twitter Blue to get a blue checkmark and access special features starting Monday. The blue checkmark was originally given to companies, celebrities, government entities and journalists verified by the platform. After Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, he launched a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. But it was inundated by imposter accounts, including those impersonating Musk's businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter suspended the service days after its launch. Nick Mattar, who teaches digital marketing in the Mike Ilitch School of Business and is the associate director of marketing at the Wayne State University Graduate School, discusses the ongoing story. "…as far as I can tell, the platform seems to be running the same as it did yesterday, and even before Musk acquired it. So now, it's really a matter of what comes next," Mattar said. "It sounds like there are going to be a couple of different checkmarks. People think of the blue checkmark, which would still be the standard. But they would have a separate checkmark for companies, which would be gold, and a separate checkmark for government entities, which would be grey. I think this is their way of trying to solve the issue of people masquerading as businesses, but that still doesn't address the issue of fake accounts…"