What Next TBD: Stephen King Is Just as Confused About Blue Checks as You Are

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twitter’s “blue check” verification went from something you applied for, to something you could pay for, to something you had to pay for…to something that many celebrities wouldn’t even accept for free. Master of horror Stephen King told us he wouldn’t pay for a blue check, but he’s not going to fight it either—he just doesn’t really understand what’s going on. Does anyone at Twitter understand? Guests: Alex Heath, deputy editor of The Verge Jon Favreau, co-founder of Crooked Media, speechwriter for President Barack Obama Stephen King, freelancer author If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone, just a heads up that there is some swearing in this episode.
0:05.4	Okay, here's the show.
0:07.0	Steve, can you tell me who you are and what you do?
0:17.0	My name is Stephen King.
0:20.4	I'm a writer, freelance writer, novelist, short story writer, and sometimes SAs, and that's
0:28.0	what I do.
0:29.0	That's who I am and what I do.
0:31.0	And you have 7.1 million Twitter followers last time I checked.
0:35.0	If you say so.
0:38.0	Stephen King.
0:39.0	Yes, that's Stephen King.
0:41.0	Agreed to talk to me because he, like many Twitter users, had a somewhat confusing weekend
0:47.0	online.
0:48.0	Late last week, Twitter began removing verification badges.
0:52.0	AKA Blue Checkmarks from Legacy Verified Accounts and only keeping them for people who paid
0:58.0	$8 a month for Twitter Blue.
1:01.0	Except, Stephen never paid.
1:03.0	You tweeted on April 20th my Twitter account says I've subscribed to Twitter Blue, I haven't,
1:09.0	my Twitter account says I've given a phone number, I haven't.
1:13.0	Like, what do you make of this state of affairs?
1:16.0	Well, I don't really understand it.
1:19.0	I mean, Elon Musk, after I said that, he tweeted back that thank you.
	...

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