“How Elon Musk Got Tangled Up in Blue § Homoglyph Attack”, Ryan Mac, Kate Conger2024-08-24 (, ; similar)⁠:

…The Check Mark: Before the introduction of verified check marks in 2009, impersonation on Twitter was pervasive. While the company’s founders knew it was a problem, cracking down on accounts masquerading as those belonging to famous people was always a secondary concern as the company struggled to keep the site online as it constantly crashed from growth.

…Still, the absurdity of being asked to launch a product built to Musk’s specifications in less than two weeks, amid widespread layoffs, was not lost on her. In one meeting, she presented her team with customized mugs that wouldn’t have been out of place at a tech-themed Bed Bath & Beyond. “Chance made us co-workers, crazy psycho [expletive] made us Tweeps”, read the mugs’ inscription.

Ms. Crawford and her team tried to develop safeguards. On Oct. 31, they presented options to Musk and his retinue of investors and friends. In one version of the system, there would be two badges: People who were already verified would keep their blue badges, while those who paid for the subscription program would get a different badge, this one in white.

To illustrate the differences, they created mock-ups of two tweets. One, from the legacy verified @JoeBiden account, advised people to vote. The other, from the Blue-subscribed @JoeB1den account, which replaced the “i” with a “1”, tweeted that it was “starting nuclear war with Russia.” Besides the slight change in spelling, the two accounts could be distinguished by their colored badges.

The attempt to make clearer distinctions between legacy and paid verified users, however, was not embraced by Musk’s friends. It “feels like a second-class citizen”, David Sacks, a venture capitalist who was assisting with the takeover, wrote in an email seen by The New York Times, adding that it would “disincentivize purchase.” Eventually, Musk vetoed the move.

Musk’s fixation on Blue extended beyond the design, and he engaged in lengthy deliberations about how much it should cost. Mr. Sacks insisted that they should raise the price to $20 a month, from its current $4.99. Anything less felt cheap to him, and he wanted to present Blue as a luxury good. “Chanel could make a fortune selling a $99 bag, but it would be a one-time move”, he wrote. “A ‘promotional offer’ may not be the position we want. A luxury brand can always move down-market, but it’s very hard to move up-market once the brand is shot.”