Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, this Saturday (05.02.22) asked in an open letter to the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, to ensure the defense of human rights from his platform. “Like all businesses, Twitter needs to understand the harms associated with its platform and take steps to address them. Respecting our common human rights must place barriers to the use and development of the platform. In short, I urge you to ensure that human rights are at the heart of Twitter’s governance under your leadership,” he wrote. Turk.
“Twitter is part of a global revolution that has changed the way we communicate,” Turk adds in the message he posted on Twitter, which has 25,000 followers. “But I am writing with concern and apprehension about our digital public sphere and Twitter’s role in that,” he added. However, the platform and its new owner are now more concerned, as Musk, the world’s richest person, said on Friday, the “massive drop in income”, in the face of which he decided to launch half of the model.
New payment service
The platform today launched a subscription service of eight euros per month for “verified” accounts, which until now had a blue tick ensuring that the company had verified their authenticity. In an update for Apple’s iOS devices, Twitter said those who “Sign Up Now” can get the coveted blue check mark next to their usernames, “just like the celebrities, businesses and politicians they already follow.”
According to an iOS notice, other benefits of the update include “half of ads,” the ability to post longer videos on Twitter, and prioritization for high-quality content. New Twitter chief Elon Musk pointed to the new service earlier this week in his attempt to monetize the social network and make it less dependent on ads. Twitter is currently free for most users.
The new service with verification, previously announced, will be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. “Once we confirm it’s working well in the initial set of countries and translation work done, it will be rolled out worldwide,” Musk said in a tweet on Saturday.
lgc (afp/rtr)
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