Since its creation in 2009, blue certification has become an essential element in making the social network a trusted forum for many users

Elon Musk on Friday defended his controversial decision to charge users who want to have a certified account, saying that social networks that do not follow his example will eventually collapse, overwhelmed with fake accounts.

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“The major challenge here is that it is very simple to create 10,000 or 100,000 fake accounts on Twitter with a single computer and modern AI,” Musk explained during a question and answer session on his platform, the eve of the switch to paid certification, which should become effective on April 1. “It is for this reason that verification can only be done with a phone and credit card number”, he added, “my prediction is that the so-called social networks which will not will collapse”.

The businessman is also desperate to find a way to generate revenue for a company that he says has lost more than half of its value since it was taken over for more than $40 billion.

This evolution of the system, however, raises many questions among companies, celebrities, politicians and journalists who use Twitter as one of their main means of communication and could count on this certification as proof of their credibility.

Since its creation in 2009, blue certification has become an essential element in making the social network a trusted forum for many users.

The launch of the first version of the subscription led to a flood of fake accounts, sometimes impersonating Mr. Musk himself, forcing him to back down but losing many of his burnt-out advertisers in the process, and at the same time an essential part of the platform revenue.