Twitter Might Start Charging For Verification!

Musk gonna make celebrities and influencers pay.

It begins.

Twitter is on its slow and certain downfall.

Twitter is considering offering verified accounts to users who are willing to pay $19.99 a month for a subscription service, and it may take away the coveted blue check marks of existing users if they don’t start paying for the product within 90 days, according to internal Twitter documents viewed by CNN.

It’s possible the plan and pricing could change, as Twitter’s new billionaire owner Elon Musk works to put his stamp on one of the world’s most important social media platforms. It’s also unclear if some verified users may be exempt from paying the fee; many international organizations and charities, for example are verified on Twitter.

According to internal Twitter planning documents viewed by CNN, it appears the pay-for-verification feature would only be rolled out in those four countries to start and would be priced at $19.99 a month.

The Verge first reported the proposed pricing plan on Sunday. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted on Sunday. Later that day, Musk engaged with a poll tweeted out by Jason Calcanis, a member of the billionaire’s inner circle, asking how much they would pay to be verified on the platform. A large majority of responders selected the “wouldn’t pay” option.

Musk suggested the possibility of tying verification to a paid subscription service. In April, Musk said Twitter’s paid subscribers “should get an authentication checkmark.” In another tweet, he said: “Price should probably be ~$2/month, but paid 12 months up front & account doesn’t get checkmark for 60 days (watch for CC chargebacks) & suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam.”

If Musk were to create a paid barrier for verification, it could make it harder to distinguish whether a notable name is a bot or not.

Musk, who previously said he wants to “defeat the spam bots,” made the prevalence of spam and fake accounts on Twitter central to his effort to get out of the deal, before reversing course earlier this month and moving forward with the acquisition.