I included this footnote in my aforelinked Timothy Snyder/John Lithgow piece:

Linked reluctantly to Snyder’s Substack site. I wish he would leave Substack already. While I’m at it, he should stop posting to X/Twitter, too. He already has a vibrant Bluesky following. His continued presence on those sites drives revenue and attention to them.

It made my point, but I wanted to expand slightly on one aspect of the impact of Snyder’s X/Twitter presence. It became too unwieldy for a footnote, so here we are.

First, regarding Substack: There are plenty of really good, long-standing reasons why Snyder should abandon Substack. I won’t belabor that.

As for X/Twitter, Snyder has a “Verified” account. This means he signed up to pay the execrable Elon Musk at least $7 a month for a blue checkmark next to his name. So did John Lithgow and many businesspeople, brands, authors, influencers, and activists—many of whom, I’d wager, would express personal distaste for the man whose business they willingly support with their money and attention, thus fueling his ability to continue wreaking havoc on our democracy.

Paying for Premium is the only way to get a blue verified checkmark today:

Starting April 1, 2023 we began winding down our legacy Verification program and accounts that were verified under the previous criteria (active, notable, and authentic) will not retain a blue checkmark unless they are subscribed to X Premium.

Let’s put aside the obvious protection racket of having “paid verification systems”—which amount to little more than “it would be a shame if someone impersonated you”—because what’s more irksome is that X/Twitter uses the fact that these well-known, supposedly respectable people have paid for protection—I mean, Premium accounts—as a way to drive more subscribers to Premium by prominently placing ads for the service on the site, with this come-on:

Get your own Blue badge

Verification boosts your credibility and visibility, like @TimothyDSnyder.”

Every verified account you view displays this ad (until you dismiss it)—they’re paying to be exploited.

Gross.