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In a recent tweet, the Tesla CEO announced that Twitter will only display verified accounts on your personal timeline, starting April 15. This is the algorithmic timeline with the name “For You”. Musk says this move is the “only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over.”

This means that if you’re not verified, your Tweets won’t show up in others timeline. Only if users click on the other tab with “Following”. This means a lot fewer people will see the Tweets of unverified people. This new move to make the “For you” timeline a verified-only algorithmic feed will probably not be a popular decision. At the other hand, all the verified people are known and traceable, so the quality of the Tweets will probably go up. It probably does remove the spambots and flamewars.

Twitter only has 385,000 paying users at the moment

Additionally, the company is removing legacy verification checkmarks from previously notable accounts on April 1. So, it looks like the “For You” timeline will be filled by paid accounts, in addition to brands and officials’ accounts, making it an exclusively paid timeline.

Musk also said that from now on, only verified accounts can participate in polls. Whether that applies to Twitter-created polls or all polls on the platform is unclear. The announcement is a bit confusing.

Will Twitter be successful again?

Musk is changing Twitter in a fast pace. Users don’t have much time to adapt to all the changes. Musk is definility looking at the long term, as he told his staff Twitter is only worth around 20 billion dollars right now. But he believes it’s on route to reach a value of 240 billion dollars in a couple years. He wants Twitter to be a successful and healthy social network, where income is mainly based on subscriptions instead of advertising. The question many people have is will he be successful?