Twitter Blue now available for Android, looks like it violates ToS
Do you want to pay $8-11 a month to get a check mark that says “I produce/am content that makes Twitter money, and I’m paying for that opportunity?” Well if you’re on Android you now can. A blue checkmark on Twitter, which once signified you were a known personality that had been vetted, now just shows you verified with a phone number that wasn’t a Google Voice or similar one.
Twitter Blue is $8 a month if you sign up from a web browser, $11 if you go through an app store. As I recall this alternate price and payment location is explicitly not allowed by the Play Store and App Stores terms of service, which is one of the reasons that lead to Fortnite being banned from Apple’s App Store and later the Google Play Store back in 2020.
I can’t remember if they ever got back on Apple’s side, but it doesn’t appear they even show in searches on the Play Store. Pic above from web browser, US, Jan 2023. Mirrors what I got in the Play Store app.
Will be interesting to see if Twitter gets the Fortnite treatment. There might be a social media exemption in the Google Play Developer terms of service but I’m not seeing it, nor have I heard claims of developers who got kicked off for multi-pricing attempting to claim said exemption.
Anyway, it’s there, even if they receive the Fortnite treatment that took months to enforce and I suspect Twitter would take longer.
