{"id":1728144,"date":"2022-11-07T06:05:06","date_gmt":"2022-11-07T11:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1728144"},"modified":"2022-11-07T11:32:45","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T16:32:45","slug":"elon-musk-confirms-twitter-employees-sold-verification-badges-behind-the-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/elon-musk-confirms-twitter-employees-sold-verification-badges-behind-the-scenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk Confirms Twitter Employees Sold Verification Badges Behind the Scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Felon-musk-confirms-twitter-employees-sold-verification-badges-behind-the-scenes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1728144&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-elon-musk\">Elon Musk<\/a> on Nov. 5 confirmed claims that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-twitter\">Twitter<\/a> employees were selling verification badges for certain users.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwitter employees were selling verification for upwards of $15,000. For certain accounts, mine included, they would refuse to verify you through the standard application and then privately offer to verify you for $$ behind the scenes. Investigation needed,\u201d WSBChairman\u2014a user with 900,000 followers\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WSBChairman\/status\/1588973918379200512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1588977690216124416%7Ctwgr%5E8e4525627d47cbf5848b0ae10067f6aa9124a9d7%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&#038;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwatcher.guru%2Fnews%2Felon-musk-agrees-twitter-employees-sold-verification-previously\">claimed<\/a>\u00a0on the platform on Nov. 5. Musk confirmed that user\u2019s claim, responding: \u201cYup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neither WSBChairman nor Musk provided further details or evidence. Meanwhile, no prominent former Twitter executives have publicly commented on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFar too many legacy \u2018verified\u2019 checkmarks were handed out, often arbitrarily, so in reality they are *not* verified,\u201d Musk wrote. \u201cYou can buy as many as you want right now with a Google search. Piggybacking off payment system plus Apple\/Android is a much better way to ensure verification.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Tesla CEO last week unveiled a plan to get verified users to pay $8 per month to keep their blue checkmark, which has become something of a status symbol on the social media platform. Verification badges were proposed as a system to show that an account is authentic, but Musk said that it created a\u00a0\u201clord-and-peasant\u201d system on the platform.<\/p>\n<p>Musk also <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1588671155766194176\">confirmed<\/a>\u00a0he carried out layoffs in recent days because the firm was losing more than $4 million per day. Reports have indicated that he terminated the employment of thousands of Twitter workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50 percent more than legally required,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, some Democrat lawmakers have already set their sights on Twitter and Musk. A letter from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requested an investigation into the acquisition because members of the Saudi royal family are prominent investors in the company. However,\u00a0Prince Alwaleed bin Talal had bought a stake in the company many years before Musk acquired it last month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI write to draw your attention to potential national security concerns arising from the recently completed takeover of Twitter, Inc. by Elon Musk and a number of private investors,\u201d Murphy wrote, according to reports. \u201c\u200b\u200bSetting aside the vast stores of data that Twitter has collected on American citizens, any potential that Twitter\u2019s foreign ownership will result in increased censorship, misinformation, or political violence is a grave national security concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Musk last week announced that the newly acquired firm has suffered significant revenue losses after prominent advertisers pulled out. The tech billionaire accused activist groups of leading the charge against him and said that \u201cthey\u2019re trying to destroy free speech in America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Twitter didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment by press time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-jack-phillips\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2019\/06\/13\/Jack-Phillips.jpg\" alt=\"Jack Phillips\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"names\">\n<p>Breaking News Reporter<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times based in New York.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk on Nov. 5 confirmed claims that Twitter employees were selling verification badges for certain users.\u201cTwitter employees were selling verification for upwards of $15,000. For certain accounts, mine included,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1894972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1728144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1728144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1894972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1728144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1728144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1728144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}