I really like Twitter Blue, Twitter’s opt-in subscription that adds a blue checkmark to people’s account. I would never pay for it myself and that is the reason I like it. In brief, Twitter Blue is similar to a face tattoo. Sure, you are allowed to pay for it and show it to the world, but I will use it as a heuristic when making up my mind about whether I want to interact with you or not.
Twitter Blue is amazing as it makes it easy to identify growth hackers, thought leaders and the like. Prior to Twitter Blue, you had to scroll through a person’s feed before you could see whether it was an account that tried to game the algorithms for likes and retweets. Now, you just need to check whether the Verified account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.
When I see an account in my feed that subscribes to Twitter Blue, I block it without even looking at the content of the tweet(s). I am, as always, not the only one with this approach. And it goes without saying that I do not block ‘legacy verified account’ (i.e., accounts with a blue checkmark not subscribing to Twitter Blue).
Overall, at a personal level, I am happy Elon Musk is now the owner of Twitter. I continue to try to limit my social media use, and Elon Musk has made it a lot easier for me to use Twitter less. The ability to block Twitter Blue accounts has definitely improved my feed, primarily because of what I am not seeing in my feed.
Block the blue.