Elon Musk Announces Free Premium Features for Verified X Accounts – Elon Musk has decided to waive charges for specific premium features on X for influential accounts, provided they meet specific criteria. However, these criteria also seem attainable for accounts engaged in cryptocurrency scams.
As of March 28, Musk revealed that accounts with 2,500 verified followers will no longer be required to pay for “Premium” features on X, and those with over 5,000 followers will receive complimentary access to “Premium+.” X provides paid subscriptions across three levels of premium services: Basic, Premium, and Premium+, gradually granting content creators access to additional features within the X platforms.
Nevertheless, the option to buy verification on Twitter enables scammers and malicious actors to impersonate influential individuals effortlessly, deceiving their followers into various scams. Elon Musk introduced the paid verification system on X, previously referred to as “Twitter Blue,” to combat scammers and spammers who were flourishing on the platform prior to his intervention.
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Despite this, members of the cryptocurrency community contend that the Premium features on X still facilitate scammers in targeting potential victims more efficiently. Although some community members welcomed Musk’s choice to waive fees for popular account verification, skeptics highlighted potential loopholes due to the limited transparency regarding the platform’s internal mechanisms for verifying eligibility.
Prominent game developer Tyler Glaiel raised the point: “Haha, so a bot farm could purchase 2,500 accounts and then use them to verify an infinite number of accounts (or have them all follow each other and then cease payments)?” Some users, while acknowledging the associated expenses, echoed Glaiel’s sentiment by speculating that the new feature might encourage large groups of scammers to collaborate and repurpose accounts for various types of cyberattacks.
Certain smaller accounts on X perceive Musk’s recent action as favoring the “rich,” while others urged fellow verified users to exploit the system by following each other to qualify for free premium services. X is cognizant of the concerns regarding verified scam accounts, as evidenced by the platform’s decision in January 2024 to reduce pricing for verified organizations on the social media platform.
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This step was taken to combat the proliferation of numerous “gold check” accounts dedicated to promoting crypto scams. A recent report from CloudSEK emphasized that malicious campaigns are brewing on a significant scale, necessitating a Twitter Gold account, aimed at X users with job and cryptocurrency scams. Nevertheless, there was widespread speculation that the reduction in price might have been a strategy to attract more paid subscribers.
