Epic Games' CEO is taking a beating on Twitter.
Company CEO Tim Sweeney is getting quite the backlash regarding his recent take against those who wish to block and ignore those who paid to get verified on Twitter.
Sweeney's response follows Twitter's removal of legacy checkmarks on 4/20, as previously announced in mid-April 2023, after its failed attempt to do so on Apr. 1.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney arrives at the United States District Court on May 20, 2021 in Oakland, California.
Tim Sweeney Hot Take Details
Key point is, this had NOTHING to do with verifying identity documents to prevent impersonation. They didn't do that. Twitter employees just clicked a few buttons and you were verified.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) April 22, 2023
Tim Sweeney mentioned in a lengthy thread that people supporting and participating in the #BlockTheBlue pressure campaign are "losers and goons" who were previously the "cool kids from junior high" who worked to exclude nerds from cool kid events, along with the "losers who joined in to gain cred."
Sweeney's latest take has roots back to his opinion way before Musk took over Twitter. Sweeney's tweet back on Feb. 23, 2020, mentioned that he doesn't want to be verified on Twitter unless the company opens its verification process to the public on equal terms.
He added that, at the time, Twitter's verification system was for doling out favors to Twitter's friends and for using revocation to punish people the company didn't like. Sweeney also said that Twitter's previous systems were a meritocracy where likes and retweets ensured to get and keep the best at the top.
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Sweeney also continued criticizing Twitter's old verification system using his meritocracy angle, saying that Twitter granted its employees a social commodity that they could hand out to people in exchange for IOUs or favor. Thanks to this, friends of friends of Twitter employees were brokering verification, Epic Games' CEO explained.
However, with Musk's takeover and overhauling of the verification system through Twitter's new Blue subscription service, Sweeney's dream in 2020 came true. Unfortunately, Sweeney seemed to miss a piece of information so critical it would have prevented him from saying his now-controversial take.
The Gamer reports that Twitter introduced the checkmark to protect itself, not the celebrities, politicians, and other notables on its platform. The introduction follows baseball player Tony La Russa's 2009 lawsuit over Twitter for allowing other users to impersonate him, per Tech Crunch.
Twitter's Reaction To Sweeney's Take
Sorry, no. It's perfectly acceptable to oppose Twitter Blue on the grounds of issues like Priority Ranking alone.
— Thomas Fischer (@FischerThomasC) April 22, 2023
Money-based preferential treatment is Pay-to-win, a system that is universally loathed. It's also worse than the old system for everyone. There is literally no…
Sweeney's take did not go favorably with the rest of the internet, or at least with Twitter users, especially since Musk is paying for the Twitter Blue verifications of a few celebrities - "dolling out" to the elite, in other words.
Twitter user Thomas Fischer also mentioned in his reply to Sweeney's thread that Musk's decision to pay for the verification of a few celebrities who didn't want to be verified on Twitter goes further than the old Twitter management ever did.
Twitter user Will Smith (not the actor) and Gene Park told Sweeney that the point of being verified was to give other Twitter users the guarantee that a certain notable was the one who actually owned that account and that all it does now is say that someone paid $8 to get verified.
Related Article: Elon Musk Is Paying for Certain Celebs' Twitter Blue Subscriptions
