Twitter蓝色漏洞似乎可以让用户不付费就保留他们的复选标记

Twitter首席执行官Elon Musk介绍了改进后的Twitter蓝色订阅服务，作为欺诈内容的解药。然而，当这项服务在去年年底推出时，它催生了大量虚假账户，导致至少一家制药巨头损失了数十亿美元的股票市值。现在Twitter用户表示，这款苦苦挣扎的产品(全球付费用户不到30万)还有另一个问题，指向一个非常基本的失败:免费验证徽章。

多名个人资料中带有Twitter Blue验证标记的用户告诉Gizmodo，他们已经几周甚至几个月没有为Twitter Blue付费了。一位名为“THE Cumshot Gamer”的Twitter用户分享了一段视频，在视频中，他们导航到自己账户的Twitter蓝色部分。它会立即提示用户订阅Twitter Blue。他们的公开资料仍然显示一个蓝色的复选标记，上面有一个悬停弹出框，上面写着“此帐户已被验证，因为它订阅了Twitter蓝色”。

The Cumshot Gamer在2月6日写道:“这个蓝色复选框和它的免费就像一场希腊悲剧。”

一、Twitter Blue订阅有什么问题?

这个漏洞似乎是Elon Musk的疏忽，他对Twitter Blue能够带来的收入寄予了很大的希望，以偿还他为收购该公司而贷款的利息，尽管该产品几乎没有带来什么财务成果。目前还不清楚这个问题有多普遍。Twitter没有回应Gizmodo就此事发表评论的请求。自从Twitter大规模裁员取消了公关部门后，Elon Musk就通过自己的账户处理了公司的大部分公关工作。

THE Cumshot Gamer告诉Gizmodo，尽管他们已经几个月没有为这项服务付费了，但他们还是成功地更改了自己的头像，并通过了重新验证检查。

the Cumshot Gamer在接受Gizmodo采访时表示:“如果你在订阅期结束前一周更改了头像，Twitter就会删除‘验证’账户信息的检查标识。当我这样做的时候，验证过程持续到了我的订阅结束日期，当他们完成‘验证’时，我得到了支票，哈哈。”

另一名Twitter用户、匿名黑客组织的黑客Aubrey“Kirtaner”Cottle说，他也找到了打败该系统的方法。Cottle告诉Gizmodo，他只花了一个月的钱购买了Musk改进后的Twitter Blue服务。他说，他去年12月订阅了Twitter，今年1月取消了订阅，他的个人资料上仍然有一个Twitter蓝色复选框。

“免费蓝色验证的第二个月，哈哈哈，”Cottle在2月6日发布。(华东CIO大会、华东CIO联盟、CDLC中国数字化灯塔大会、CXO数字化研学之旅、数字化江湖-讲武堂，数字化江湖-大侠传、数字化江湖-论剑、CXO系列管理论坛（陆家嘴CXO管理论坛、宁波东钱湖CXO管理论坛等）、数字化转型网，走进灯塔工厂系列、ECIO大会等)

另一位Twitter用户Alex Kerker告诉Gizmodo一个类似的故事。

“我的订阅到期了，我决定不再续签，过期后第二天我登录Twitter时，它还在。”Cottle说。

Kerker向Gizmodo确认了他们的Twitter Blue订阅到期的消息。该通知于1月24日发出。截至2月8日，他仍然有Twitter蓝色复选框。

二、Twitter Blue赚了多少钱？

在撰写本文时，Twitter Blue预计将从全球不到30万的订阅者(其中18万在美国)中产生2800万美元的年收入，这还不到Musk所说的他希望该项目带来的30亿美元收入的1%。程序员Travis Brown开发的Twitter Blue用户列表显示了类似的数字。

当Gizmodo告知Brown这个免费徽章漏洞时，他说:“我一直在想可能是某种漏洞。有很多账户似乎在订阅和未订阅之间来回切换。”

这些账号中就有“THE Cumshot Gamer”。Brown的分析似乎证实了“the Cumshot Gamer”所描述的过程，即他们暂时失去了认证状态，但后来又恢复了认证状态，尽管他们没有付款。

Brown告诉Gizmodo:“他们在1月初的几天里显示为非Blue，但你提供的其他用户名自注册以来似乎一直显示为Blue。”

Twitter蓝最初于2021年推出，价格为每月3美元，功能有限，但从未对公司的利润做出过重大贡献。广告收入占Twitter收入的绝大部分。Musk在2022年10月接管Twitter后，提高了Twitter高级产品的价格，并承诺对产品进行全面改革，引入一些新功能。大多数已宣布的功能尚未实现，但该计划可以吹嘘该平台上“经核实”的塔利班成员数量有所增加。

最近，Musk承诺与Twitter Blue订户分享一种形式的广告收入，这与传销计划进行了比较。Musk在Twitter上匆忙宣布了针对“Twitter网红”的收入分享计划，但没有详细说明该计划的实际运作方式，这给用户留下了更多的问题而不是答案。鉴于用户报告的免费复选，如果Twitter Blue甚至不知道谁先付钱，它怎么知道该给谁付钱呢?

我们不知道有多少Twitter Blue用户已经停止为这项服务付费，但仍设法保留他们的标记，这可能会增加“付费”用户的总数。没有内部数据，实际上是不可能确认的。但显而易见的是，Musk有“巨额资金问题”，而一个漏洞不断、使用率低的订阅服务不太可能解决这些问题。

原文：

Twitter CEO Elon Musk presented the revamped Twitter Blue subscription service as an antidote to scam content. When the service launched late last year, however, it spurred a raft of fake accounts that cost at least one pharmaceutical giant billions in stock market value. Now Twitter users say the struggling product—which has fewer than 300,000 paying subscribers worldwide—has another problem, one that points to a very basic failure: free verification badges.

Multiple users whose profiles boast Twitter Blue verification checkmarks have told Gizmodo that they haven’t paid for Twitter Blue in weeks or even months. One Twitter user going by “THE Cumshot Gamer” shared a video in which they navigate to the Twitter Blue section of their account. It immediately prompts them to subscribe to Twitter Blue. Their public profile still shows a blue checkmark, which has a hover-over popup that reads “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.”

“The plague of this blue checkmark and it also being free is like a greek tragedy,” THE Cumshot Gamer wrote on February 6.

What’s wrong with Twitter Blue subscriptions?

The bug appears to be an oversight for Elon Musk, who has placed significant hopes in the revenue that Twitter Blue could generate in order to service the interest on the loans he took out to buy the company, though the product has borne little financial fruit. It’s unclear how widespread the problem could be. Twitter did not respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment on the issue. Since Twitter’s massive layoffs eliminated its public relations department, Elon Musk himself has handled the bulk of the company’s public relations via his own account.

THE Cumshot Gamer told Gizmodo that they were able to successfully change their profile picture and pass a re-verification check despite not having paid for the service in months.

“If you change your profile picture a week before your subscription is up, Twitter removes the check badge to ‘verify’ account details,” THE Cumshot Gamer told Gizmodo. “When I did it, the verification process lasted past my subscription end date and when they were done ‘verifying’ I got the check back, lol.”

Another Twitter user and hacker affiliated with the hacktivist group Anonymous, Aubrey “Kirtaner” Cottle, says he also has found a way to beat the system. Cottle told Gizmodo that he only paid for one month of Musk’s revamped Twitter Blue service. He said he subscribed in December, cancelled in January, and still has a Twitter Blue checkmark on his profile.

“MONTH TWO OF FREE BLUE VERIFICATION LOL,” Cottle posted on February 6.

Another Twitter user, Alex Kerker, told Gizmodo a similar story.

“My subscription expired, and I decided not to renew it,” Kerker said. “When I logged on to Twitter the day after expiration, it was still there.”

Kerker shared a confirmation of their Twitter Blue subscription expiration with Gizmodo. The notice was sent on January 24. He still has a Twitter Blue checkmark as of February 8.

How much money does Twitter Blue make?

As of this writing, Twitter Blue is projected to generate $28 million in annual revenue from fewer than 300,000 subscribers worldwide—180,000 of those are in the U.S.—which is less than 1% of the $3 billion that Musk has said he hopes the program will bring in. A list of Twitter Blue subscribers developed by programmer Travis Brown shows a similar number.

“I’ve wondered about some kind of bug,” Brown said when informed of the free badge bug by Gizmodo. “There are a lot of accounts that seem to go back and forth between subscribed and unsubscribed.”

Among those accounts was “THE Cumshot Gamer.” Brown’s analysis appears to confirm the process described by “THE Cumshot Gamer” in which they temporarily lost and later regained their verified status, despite nonpayment.

“They showed up as not-Blue for a couple of days in early January, but the other usernames you provided seem to have been continuously shown as Blue since signing up,” Brown told Gizmodo.

Initially launched by Twitter in 2021 at a price of $3 a month with limited features, Twitter Blue has never significantly contributed to the company’s bottom line. Advertising comprises the vast majority of Twitter’s revenue. After Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, he raised the price of the premium Twitter tier and promised an overhaul of the product that would introduce a number of new features. Most of the announced features have yet to materialize, but the program can boast an increase in the number of “verified” members of the Taliban on the platform.

Most recently, Musk promised a form of ad-revenue sharing with Twitter Blue subscribers, inviting comparisons with MLM schemes. In the hastily tweeted announcement of the revenue sharing program for “Twitter influencers,” Musk provided scant details on how it would actually work, leaving users with more questions than answers. Given users’ reports of free checkmarks, how will Twitter Blue know who to pay if it doesn’t even know who is paying them first?

We don’t know what percentage of Twitter Blue users have stopped paying for the service while managing to keep their checkmark, potentially inflating the total number of “paid” subscribers. Without internal data, it’s effectively impossible to confirm. But what is clear is that Musk has “big money problems” and a leaky subscription service with low uptake is unlikely to solve them.

本文主要内容转载原作者Steven Monacelli，仅供广大读者参考，如有侵犯您的知识产权或者权益，请联系我提供证据，我会予以删除。

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