William Shatner blasts Elon Musk’s Twitter policies

William Shatner is not taking Elon Musk’s new Twitter policies lying down.

William Shatner is not a man who keeps quiet. His decades long-fueds with his Star Trek castmates are proof of that. Yet, the recently aged 92-year-old Shatner is not taking on his long-time nemesis in George Takei. No, Shatner is directing his aim at Twitter owner Elon Musk.

Shatner, like a vast majority of people on the blue-bird app we call Twitter, is calling into question Musk’s attempts to monetize the platform by charging people $8 a month for a service called “Twitter Blue”.

The service does give users some new features, like long-form video posting, but the one that has ruffled feathers the most is the fact that the profound blue check mark that specific profiles have gotten over the years, is going away unless they pay for Twitter Blue.

Shatner is not a fan of this concept, addressing Musk on Twitter directly, saying;

William Shatner has a point about Twitter Blue

The blue check mark that Twitter gave out to people originally was done to verify that the person on the platform was who they claimed to be. It cut down on impersonations, but it also allowed journalists to be taken more seriously. Considering the rise in misinformation on the platform since Musk took over the service, one would argue that the old model worked pretty well in protecting information and providing users with the best facts available.

Now anyone can pay the money to become verified, and in doing so can cause havoc at their own leisure.

The move isn’t surprising, as Musk has gutted the company’s worth since taking it over. He purchased it for $44 billion, but the company is now only worth about $20 billion, and that’s coming from Musk himself.

To make matters worse, Twitter Blue is looking like a flop. Many people rightfully point out that Musk is a “free speech advocate” but his desire to make people pay $8 a month to have preferred status kind of defeats the purpose of “free speech”.

Twitter Blue flat-out erases the idea of free, and instead offers up a subscription model for “Free Speech”.