Twitter may begin charging for blue tick in less than a month; no word on India pricing

New Delhi, November 6

Twitter may start charging for its blue tick verification service in India in “less than a month,” tweeted new owner Elon Musk. However, there is uncertainty how the government will respond when it is asked to pay for the blue tick on the handles of ministries, government departments and PSUs.

“Hopefully, less than a month,” Musk tweeted in response to a Twitter user’s query on when the service was expected to be launched in India. He had earlier this month announced that a verification blue tick in front of a user’s name that authenticates an account will be charged $8 per month. There is no official word on India pricing just yet.

Twitter’s strategy to introduce a monthly charge for the verified badge has polarised users globally. Musk, the CEO of electric car-maker Tesla Inc, completed his USD 44-billion takeover of Twitter in October-end, placing the world’s richest man at the helm of one of the most influential social media apps in the world. He fired the social media company’s four top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal.

Mass layoffs across the globe

Twitter has fired a majority of its over 200 employees in India — including four top executives, among them CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde — as part of mass layoffs across the globe.