the world's richest individual, and his previous outspoken views on what Twitter should and should not be doing. One of Musk's first moves was to cut the Twitter workforce by around 50%. Among those who were made redundant were key members of the teams that oversaw content moderation and tackled the dissemination of misinformation. Twitter's advertisers were unnerved by this and other early decisions made by Musk, like reinstating Donald Trump's account on the service, apparently on the basis of a quick Twitter opinion poll. Advertisers and ordinary users have been similarly confused about what is happening with the blue checks that were used to designate verified Twitter accounts. At first, it was announced that the new Twitter Blue option, which included the blue tick, would cost $19.99. In the face of criticism that this was exorbitant, that was lowered to $7.99. However, a few days later, the blue checks scheme was dropped following a wave of impostor accounts that were set up and approved by Twitter. For example, a fake Eli Lilly & Co account tweeted that insulin would be free, causing the company's share price to fall by 4.5% in a few hours. Elon Musk later tweeted that there would be a new scheme, with a "Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates." It is unclear whether this latest system will help or hurt creators. On the one hand, it will allow them to gain the blue check more easily, which may increase their online visibility – a key concern for artists that wish to establish themselves or build on their existing reputation. However, since the new blue check seems to be open to anyone, provided they can prove their identity, it may be that the value of the mark will diminish as more of them appear. Moreover, if Twitter's manual authentication process is too cursory, fake accounts may appear of well-known artists, just as they did briefly with the previous short-lived Twitter Blue option. Alongside the revamped system of designating verified accounts, the other major development that has been made public is a plan to allow much more material, and of all kinds, to be posted as a tweet. On 5 November, Musk wrote that "Twitter will soon add ability to attach long-form text to tweets, ending absurdity of notepad screenshots". In response, a popular account on Twitter, Everyday Astronaut, asked SPECIAL FEATURE 37
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