Twitter owner Elon Musk plans to “tentatively” relaunch Twitter Blue on December 2nd with new, colour-coded checkmarks. Previously, Musk planned to relaunch Blue on November 29th but later said Twitter would hold off until it could deal with the impersonation issue.
In a tweet, Musk said that companies would get gold checkmarks, governments would get grey checkmarks, and individuals would get blue checkmarks, “celebrity or not.” Moreover, Musk said that “all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before [the] check activates,” a move he described as “painful, but necessary.”
Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week.
Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates.
Painful, but necessary.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022
In another tweet, Musk said, “All verified individual humans will have [the] same blue check, as [the] boundary of what constitutes “notable” is otherwise too subjective.” Moreover, he said individuals can get a secondary logo showing they belong to an organization if verified by that institution. Musk promised a longer explanation would come next week.
All verified individual humans will have same blue check, as boundary of what constitutes “notable” is otherwise too subjective.
Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org.
Longer explanation next week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022
These changes come after Musk rolled out a new version of the Twitter Blue subscription that gave subscribers a blue checkmark that matched the verified badge previously given to notable accounts. The new subscription costs $9.99/mo in Canada. However, Musk suspended the new Blue within days after Twitter was flooded with paid ‘verified’ accounts that impersonated brands, celebrities, and politicians. Blue caused chaos and even led to significant stock drops for some companies.
Moreover, Twitter employees warned Musk and leadership of the potential problems — including impersonation risks — ahead of the Blue launch. Musk ignored them.
While the changes to Blue and Musk’s promise to actually verify Twitter users seem promising, it remains to be seen how it plays out on December 2nd (or whenever the changes go live). Moreover, questions remain about how Musk plans to manually verify all the users who sign up, given he decimated Twitter’s staff and contract workers and continued firing people even after saying he would start hiring new staff.
You can follow the ongoing Musk and Twitter saga here.
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