Starting August 7th, advertisers that haven’t reached certain spending thresholds will lose their official brand account verification. According to emails obtained by the WSJ, brands need to have spent at least $1,000 on ads within the prior 30 days or $6,000 in the previous 180 days to retain the gold checkmark identifying that the account belongs to a verified brand.
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Threatening to remove verified checkmarks is a risky move given how many ‘Twitter alternative’ services like Threads and Bluesky are cropping up and how willing consumers appear to be to jump ship, with Threads rocketing to 100 million registrations in just five days. That said, it’s not like other efforts to drum up some additional cash, like increasing API pricing, have gone down especially well, either. It’s a bold strategy, Cotton — let’s see if it pays off for him.
Wait, wait, wait, lemme get this right.
Problem: They were low or revenue.
Response: Increase API costs
Problem: API costs are too high
Response: People started scrapping Twitter
Problem: People are scrapping the site
Response: Make users sign in to view tweets
Problem: People have to sign in to see any ads too
Response: Tell companies that if they don’t spend enough on ads they will lose verification.
I mean, what’s next?
The pun was there the whole time!