James May Weighs In On Elon Musk Twitter Dilemma

The Grand Tour host, James May, has chimed in on the Twitter “Blue Tick debate”. The social media platform has recently been taken over by Tesla CEO, Elon Musk.

Musk, who has never been afraid to broadcast his bold opinions, shared to his Twitter followers that he is considering making it so users can purchase the blue ‘verification’ tick for $8 a month. Musk wrote:

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bull***t. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”

Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.

Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2022

Musk continued in a thread of tweets to say that the price would be adjusted “by country proportionate to purchasing power parity”. The Twitter owner shared what would be included in the price to make it seem more enticing. If you pay the eight dollars a month you will get priority in replies, mentions and search, you will receive half the amount of ads, and you will have the ability to post a long video or audio.

The further explanation from Musk is that it will “give Twitter a revenue stream to reward content creators”.

As you can imagine, this created a lot of backlash and criticism. Many users have been raising concerns around how to know if the person is the real one, for example, someone could pay the eight dollars a month to get the blue tick and then rename their account to ‘Elon Musk’. Musk has now added that:

“There will be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, which is already the case for politicians”

Former Top Gear host, Jame May, has also commented on the situation. He wrote to his followers:

“Perhaps the ideal answer to the great Blue Tick debate is that everyone on here should be verified, haters an’ all. Then we can be accountable, and therefore responsible, digital citizens.
“Naïve, probably.”

Perhaps the ideal answer to the great Blue Tick debate is that everyone on here should be verified, haters an’ all. Then we can be accountable, and therefore responsible, digital citizens.

Naïve, probably.

— James May (@MrJamesMay) November 2, 2022

This whole thing has split opinions, with some saying that this is Musk’s way of doing research to see if he could get away with it or not. So, after the poor reception it has had, maybe it won’t happen at all. In true Musk fashion, he has made light of the situation by changing his Twitter bio to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator”.