Twitter is bringing a lot of new features to its worldwide popular platform. A few months back, Twitter announced that it will add monetization features for existing accounts. Tip Jar is a new feature launched by Twitter for monetization purposes. It received mixed feedback from the experts. Some called it a right step, whereas others raised privacy concerns.
What is Tip Jar and Why It is Introduced?
On Thursday, Twitter brought a new feature name Tip Jar on its microblogging platform. Tip Jar helps users to send money to Twitter accounts they support. Currently, the new feature applies to a handful of creators, journalists, experts, and nonprofits organizations. But it allows everyone to send tips.
Talking about the new feature, Twitter posted a detailed blog. With this initiative, Twitter wants to support the incredible organizations and people who have limited supports on the ground but doing an extraordinary job for society and humankind. It is a way to say thank you to such voices with small tips.
Twitter said:
“Tip Jar is an easy way to support the incredible voices that make up the conversation on Twitter. This is the first step in our work to create new ways for people to receive and show support on Twitter – with money.”
Since Tip Jar is limited to few accounts right now, you can check on your Twitter handle whether you are eligible for Tip Jar or not. If you are eligible, you can enable the feature on your profile to receive the tip. Once someone enables it, you will get a new dollar bill icon next to the Follow button of that profile. Button location is the same for iOS and Andriod versions of the Twitter app.
If you are an android user and want to send tips to an account, you can send them through Twitter Spaces as well.
Twitter has included plenty of payment methods to process tips. Those payment methods are Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal, and Venmo.
The social media giant also said that it will expand the Tip Jar feature for more accounts in the future. It will also include more languages’ accounts for Tip Jar.
Right now, Twitter is not getting any commission from Tip Jar forwarded money. It’s free. But in the future, Tip Jar may be commission-based. Twitter did not reveal any plans to receive service charges or commission from the payments.
Twitter further added on its blog post:
“We $ee you – sharing your PayPal link after your Tweet goes viral, adding your $Cashtag to your profile so people can support your work, dropping your Venmo handle on your birthday, or if you just need some extra help.”
Tip Jar in India and Privacy Concerns Raised by Experts
Since other payment methods are not available in India, Indian users can send tips by PayPal only. But it is not clear whether any Indian account is eligible for receiving tips or not. Taxation, GST are other concerns for Indian accounts who may receive tips in the future.
Since PayPal shares money senders’ address details to money receivers, people raised privacy concerns about users while sending money by PayPal.
Talking about this serious concern, Twitter Support clarified:
“We’re updating our tipping prompt and Help Center to make it clearer that other apps may share info between people sending/receiving tips, per their terms.”
It should also be noted that it’s PayPal that is sharing address detail, not Twitter.
Some experts also raised Social Engineering risks brought by Tip Jar. Tobac tweeted about it. She posted the given below tweet:
“Many payment tools have ATO [account take over] issues — for example, Venmo requires “real” phone number leading to user ATO + sim swap risk. Publicly displaying preferred payment tools/details can [increase] social engineering and ATO risk.”
