Elon Musk says he's ditching a 'silly' Twitter policy that stopped an account dedicated to a beagle from being monetized
The billionaire Twitter owner scrapped a policy that made profiles featuring animals or fictional characters ineligible for a professional account.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
- Elon Musk vowed to scrap a Twitter policy that barred an account dedicated to a dog from going pro.
- The change comes just days after Twitter introduced a new program to share revenue with users.
- Musk tweeted "consider this silly policy deleted as of now," Deadline first reported.
Elon Musk says he will delete a Twitter policy preventing accounts featuring "animals or fictional characters" from being turned professional and monetized.
He made the comment after an account dedicated to a beagle was found to be ineligible. Musk's decision to change the policy was reported by Deadline.
On Saturday, the Twitter owner tweeted, "Consider this silly policy deleted as of now" after Twitter user @HarmlessYardDog, an account with more than 102,000 followers, flagged the corresponding section of Twitter's help center page.
The account tweeted, "Bag status: canceled" after noting it was unable to monetize its tweets.
—Battle Beagle (@HarmlessYardDog) July 14, 2023
The policy page said, "Profiles that feature animals or fictional characters are ineligible, unless directly affiliated with your brand or organization. Parody and fan accounts are not eligible for subscriptions."
The move comes days after Twitter introduced a new ad-revenue program, which has begun paying thousands of dollars to creators and influencers on the platform. This is part of Musk's plan to reward the site's users who pay a monthly fee for a blue check.
Andrew Tate and Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt were among the first batch of users who said they were being paid by Twitter.
The introduction of the program comes the same month Mark Zuckerberg launched Twitter rival Threads, which accumulated more than 100 million users in its first week. The app's launch poses a fresh threat to Twitter, which has been battling declining revenue since Musk's takeover.
On Saturday, the billionaire tweeted that Twitter is "still negative cash flow" due to an advertising revenue drop of around 50%, as well as a "heavy debt load."
Twitter sent an automated response to Insider's request for comment.