What you need to know about Twitter's new multi-coloured verification badges
Twitter on Monday
relaunched an option for users who pay for its subscription service to receive a coveted
“blue check,” one month after the company was forced to pull the feature
amid a wave of “verified” accounts pretending to be brands and high-profile
users.
The updated verification system, which expands on check
mark options with multiple new colors, is part of new owner Elon Musk’s effort
to grow its subscription business and bolster the bottom line of the company he
bought for $44 billion, including a substantial amount of debt financing.
The new Twitter Blue subscription service will cost $8 per
month for users that subscribe via the web platform and $11 per month for those
who subscribe on the iOS app, according to a tweet from Esther
Crawford, the Twitter product head leading the subscription service effort.
The higher price point on
iOS appears to be an effort to account for Apple’s 30% app transaction fee,
which Musk recently railed against.
As part of the new verification system, Twitter will offer
gold checks for companies, gray checks for government entities and other
organizations, and blue checks for individuals, whether or not they are celebrities.
The gold business
verification check mark started appearing Monday on the accounts for various
companies, such as The New York Times and Taco Bell.
Later on Monday, the
option to subscribe to Twitter Blue returned to the platform.
Musk has previously
suggested that individuals who had been verified under the old system — because
they are journalists, celebrities or public figures — would have their checks
removed if they did not pay for Twitter’s new subscription service.
On Monday, he tweeted that
“all legacy blue checks” would be removed “in a few months.”
Some Twitter users have started to see a new explanatory
note when they click on the blue checks of accounts that were verified before
Musk’s takeover that reads: “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may
not be notable.”
Musk has also said that
Twitter, which has cut more than half its staff and lost many others to
attrition, would “manually authenticate” all verified accounts before approving
their check mark.
The company will also
temporarily remove check marks pending authentication if verified users change
their account names. It’s unclear what that authentication process will involve, beyond verifying
that users have a functional phone number.
Crawford said in
a tweet: “we don’t have ID verification in this update.”
The company says subscribers to the new Twitter
Blue will also eventually have their tweets prioritized at the top of replies,
mentions and search; see half the number of ads; and be able to post longer
videos.
Musk initially said the relaunch of the new
system would take place at the end of November, but it was delayed several
times over concerns about the safety of the feature.
The billionaire Twitter owner has promoted the ability to
pay for verification as a way of leveling the playing field.
But such an option also
threatens to undermine the original purpose of verification — to help
users know they can trust information being shared by prominent figures.
In attempting to use the paid verification option to boost
its subscription revenue, Musk also risked further alienating many of the
advertisers who still make up the vast majority of its sales.
Within hours of launching
the paid verification option last month, major brands including Nintendo of
America and Eli Lilly had their accounts impersonated.
The additional gold and gray verification categories
appear aimed at addressing some of those concerns, but it’s not clear what a
requirement for individuals to pay to be verified would mean for trust in
prominent individual users.
“All verified individual humans will have same blue check, as boundary of what constitutes ‘notable’ is otherwise too subjective,” Musk tweeted last month. “Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org.”
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