Yes, this behavior was already against the rules. What Griffin is doing is a form of civil disobedience by intentionally breaking the rules to call attention to them. Previously this was a rule that was rarely broken because verification was hard to get and usually reserved for people who had a material interest in keeping it. That gave a strong incentive not to pull these hijinks. Next week verification will be as easy as spending $8. There are going to be a huge wave of accounts that think whatever they can get out of impersonating someone is worth more than the chance of losing their $8 investment.
Sounds like a good way to get rid of low quality accounts. It doesn't get much more pathetic than paying $8 for the chance to troll and knock furniture over as you exit Twitter in a huff.
The point is that it is easy to suspend these accounts when only a dozen or so celebrities are doing this. Is Twitter going to be as quick to find and ban these accounts when anyone can do it and after they have already made cuts to their moderation team? Plus if it was that easy to find these low quality accounts, Twitter wouldn't have the spam and bot problem that Musk talks about them having.
Why link to "hollywoodreporter" when you could link to the actual source.
Anyway, King said: "It ain’t the money, it’s the principle".... what, the principle of paying for a service?
I bought a few King books as a teenager, and even though I was broke, I don't recall saying anything like "f--- that I'm not paying for books". King thinks his Tweets are like his books! That's funny, they are not. His account serves his promotional needs more than it does the needs of people who like his fiction.
I linked to an article because articles tend to provide more context than the wasteland that is Twitter - the article itself links to the tweet.
>I bought a few King books as a teenager, and even though I was broke, I don't recall saying anything like "f--- that I'm not paying for books".
Yeah... but Stephen King didn't suddenly decide you had to pay a subscription to keep the book after you already bought it, did he?
>King thinks his Tweets are like his books! That's funny, they are not.
Pretending you can read someone's mind then disagreeing with them doesn't make a compelling argument.The value his account has brought to Twitter - for free - is worth far more than the shakedown cost for keeping his blue checkmark, and Twitter needs him more than he needs Twitter.
>His account serves his promotional needs more than it does the needs of people who like his fiction.
It doesn't. I guarantee you Stephen King doesn't need a Twitter account to promote himself or his work.
Stephen King is not known for his Tweets. He is known for his books.
He tweeted yesterday: "I don’t care what you do with the blue check as long as you VOTE blue."
Sounds like he needs a Twitter account to promote his politics, his dislike of republicans, dislike of Twitter, re-tweets of Biden, and personal jabs such as "It’s amazing how much Kayleigh McEnany looks like a Barbie doll.".... Wow, he should stick to far-fetched fiction.
> "...after you already bought it, did hey?"
Who already bought what now? Nobody bought anything! That's the point. That's why Twitter is losing money. King didn't buy anything ever.
Nothing wrong with finding revenue opportunities. Think of it as a price increase from zero to a new amount. No different to any other price increase we see from one amount to another.
It's amazing the breakdown of reason and logic when people are politically motivated in their replies.
