RESIDENTS have criticised the council for “wasting money” after it subscribed for a blue verification tick on Twitter.
BCP Council recently bought Twitter Blue at a cost of £84 per year.
This means the authority can edit tweets and send messages up to 10,000 characters long.
The subscription, which will be reviewed annually, is to reassure followers and residents that tweets are directly from the council and not a fake account, according to BCP.
Isla Reynolds, director of policy, marketing and communications at BCP Council, said: “As a local authority we are an important source of news and information within our communities.
Read more: Elon Musk ‘personally paying’ to keep blue ticks on some verified Twitter users
“We feel it is appropriate to be verified on Twitter to provide our followers with the reassurance that tweets they read are from a trusted source.
“Twitter verification provides some protection against fake and copycat accounts and allows greater security on our account.
“The annual cost for this to us is £84 and at this stage, we believe the benefits of this outweigh the costs. This decision will be reviewed annually.”
However, shoppers in Bournemouth failed to see the benefits of the council’s latest spending.
Read more: Celebrities insist they will not pay for Twitter as blue ticks reappear
Ben Cunningham blasted the council’s “ridiculous” spending, saying: “I mean is it needed, really? I seriously doubt there are people out there who would want to parody the council online.”
Josh Steele said: “I think they could spend their money more wisely but then again it isn’t their money to spend is it?
“£84 could be spent on better things, like helping the homeless in our streets and the drug addictions.”
Historically, verified Twitter users, including celebrities, businesses and journalists, didn’t have to pay for a blue tick – which were in place to verify the user is a real person.
New Twitter owner Elon Musk changed the policy, meaning people must pay for the blue tick, meaning celebrities’ accounts lost their verifications.
More recently, he reinstated blue ticks to ‘legacy’ accounts with more than one million followers.
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