'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' leaked! Twitter's 60-minute video policy allows illegal movie uploads
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' by Universal has been a huge success at the box office, maintaining its position as the top-grossing movie for four consecutive weeks and crossing the $1 billion mark in global earnings. However, the movie faced the threat of piracy because of an illegal upload of the entire movie on Twitter recently.
After Twitter announced that Twitter Blue users would be able to upload videos upto 60 minutes, much larger than the previous 10 minutes, a Twitter user going by the handle @OMGitssAshley uploaded the entire 92-minute movie on the platform in two tweets, which collectively received over 9 million views. Following the violation of copyright, the user's Twitter account was suspended . Another user, @vidsthatgohard, who shared the video by @OMGitssAshley, also faced consequences and had their tweet taken down after garnering 8.5 million views.
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Did Twitter Blue enable 'Super Mario Bros. Movie' leak?
In December last year, Elon Musk announced that Twitter Blue subscribers could upload videos of upto 60 minutes in length. This is a six times increase than the previous 10 minute window. The larger limit, allows pirates to upload most of the content in one tweet and the remaining in a follow-up post. This is exactly what happened with 'Super Mario Bros. Movie', where the first 60 minutes of the film was uploaded in one tweet followed by the remaining 32 minutes in a second one. The tweet gathered 9 million views but only 500 thousand can be credited to the original tweet. The remaining 8.5 million came from a repost by another user @vidsthatgohard. While the account of the OG tweet was suspended, the second account got away with just their tweet being taken down as he was only "retweeting" the content and was not the original poster.
What makes Twitter Blue controversial?
Twitter has launched a new subscription service named Twitter Blue, which is priced at $8 ($12.50) per month and comes with a variety of extra features. The blue tick verification badge, previously offered free of charge to public figures like politicians, celebrities, and journalists, is now part of Twitter Blue. Subscribers to Twitter Blue will enjoy several benefits, including priority placement in the algorithm, the ability to upload longer audio and video content, and a decrease in the number of ads they encounter. Moreover, verified users can use bold and italic text in their tweets and even edit their posts. Starting on Thursday, April 20, Twitter began removing the blue verification ticks that were previously given to verified accounts. This decision was originally announced by Elon Musk a few months ago and is now being implemented by the social media platform. Notable individuals, including Laura Wright from 'General Hospital', Beyonce, Oprah Winfrey, and Justin Bieber, have had their blue ticks removed due to this policy change. Consequently, their accounts are no longer 'officially' recognized as verified by Twitter, and the small blue checkmark next to their username will no longer be displayed.
On top of that, allowing videos of upto 60 minutes to be uploaded only allowed piracy to shoot through the sky. Furthermore, the announcement made by Elon Musk that the Trust and safety Council has been disbanded and the officials have been fired raised serious concerns about the safety of the micro-blogging site.
