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A comment on Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagram and Facebook. Parent comment

Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by chasing on Sunday February 19, 2023 @12:58PM (#34860024)
He may very well prove that you can make a social media service more profitable by making it more harmful to users and damaging to the community in general.

I'm not sure selling sausages made out of sawdust is a big win or even that interesting of a business solution. It's a short-cut that most companies could take if they were to chuck their ethics out of the window (and possibly be willing to break the law).

But if it makes money a large swath of the tech industry will hail it as an innovation and follow suit. Which is kind of sad. And also, at the end of the day, why we need laws against selling sausages made out of sawdust.

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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by drstewart on Sunday February 19, 2023 @01:18PM (#34860241)
People are actually going to start arguing that Twitter and other social media were healthy up until he bought Twitter just to spite bad meme man, aren't they?
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by chasing on Sunday February 19, 2023 @03:44PM (#34861689)
Just because something’s a mess doesn’t mean you can’t make it worse.
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by juve1996 on Sunday February 19, 2023 @09:44PM (#34864377)
Elon has himself to blame for that. He chose to boost his status as a celebrity and delved into politics. This is the result.
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by tokinonagare on Sunday February 19, 2023 @01:11PM (#34860179)
> He may very well prove that you can make a social media service more profitable by making it more harmful to users and damaging to the community in general.

By removing the very politically-biased censorship he already did a very healthy move for the whole world.

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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by CharlesW on Sunday February 19, 2023 @01:15PM (#34860223)
> By removing the very politically-biased censorship…

About that…¹²³

¹ https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/25/23571103/elon-musk-twitte...

² https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/16/tech/musk-censors-press/index...

³ https://theintercept.com/2022/11/22/elon-musk-twitter-censor...

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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by throwaway69123 on Sunday February 19, 2023 @07:29PM (#34863468)
Musk said they would comply with the laws of each country how is this inconsistent with that statement?
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by vxNsr on Sunday February 19, 2023 @11:41PM (#34864966)
The first link is just straight speculation and bad reporting as it shows the authors disdain and bias for the subject matter. The second link is even worse beginning with an editorialization of “thin skinned” the whole rest of the article is moot. We can’t know if any of it is accurate if the author starts off with such bias against the very subject of the article. The third link has nothing to do with Elon. It’s a low profile block of an account that was breaking multiple laws. Not sure what you expect there.
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by ElevenLathe on Sunday February 19, 2023 @01:23PM (#34860291)
I'm sure dumping millions of users suddenly into the equivalent of /b/ will be a politically neutral change. /s

Unfortunately it isn't possible to have an unmoderated forum. Choosing not to moderate is still a moderation choice.

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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by mc32 on Sunday February 19, 2023 @02:37PM (#34861012)
He did but we see both the liberal and autocratic governments of the world lament that they wish Elon would be open to government censorship.
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by jeromegv on Sunday February 19, 2023 @06:59PM (#34863251)
He’s been siding with the Saudi so in terms of autocratic government he’s well in bed with them.
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by mc32 on Sunday February 19, 2023 @07:17PM (#34863389)
Are western democracies eager to get in the same bed?
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Re:Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagr... by danShumway on Monday February 20, 2023 @12:23AM (#34865187)
> He may very well prove that you can make a social media service more profitable

I'm not sure that anyone should be looking at Twitter and thinking, "this is a good strategy for making things more profitable." Is Twitter making more money? They were already losing money before, and my understanding is that post-transition a bad situation has turned into a crisis.

What are the odds that Twitter ends up being seen as something to emulate in business and not as a cautionary tale? I mean, never say never, but the impression I've gotten about Twitter's financial prospects is not optimistic.

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