Twitter may roll out its revamped blue-tick verification badges on Friday next week, new chief Elon Musk has confirmed. He also detailed how different-coloured ticks will be now introduced to denote different types of accounts. After his hostile $44-billion takeover of Twitter, Musk sought to bring in several changes to the microblogging platform. This includes the monetisation of Twitter's 'verified' blue-tick badge, which has been brought under the Twitter Blue subscription plan, priced at $8 per month for those who wish to avail of it.
On Thursday, Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich tweeted against Musk's call to lay off more than half of Twitter employees, saying, "When he fired half of Twitter’s workforce and drove off even more, he wasn't “cutting costs.” He was actively destroying what he bought." To this, Musk replied on Friday, "Interesting ... now pay $8".
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Now, to this reply, user Crypto King replied, "Elon, I’m trying. It won’t let me and I’m Verified (need to edit 1 character I can’t spell)".
Musk promptly replied to this query, saying that there has been a delay in the rollout of Twitter's "Verification" and that it will be rolled out on "Friday next week." The CEO also said that Twitter will roll out different coloured ticks to denote the different types of accounts — gold check for companies, grey for government, and blue for individuals. He also added that all verified accounts will be "manually authenticated before check activates".
What changes have been proposed by Musk to Twitter's blue ticks?
Earlier, Twitter offered the much-coveted blue-tick badge to users who verified their accounts. This verification process was free of cost, and only needed a govt-approved ID (and some official company URLs in specific cases) to complete the background check. These blue ticks helped other users understand the denuiness of an account holder, and in turn, the posts made by that person.
Twitter Blue, on the other hand, was a separate subscription service, which was priced at $4.99 per month. It offered subscribers some extra perks such as undoing tweets (within 30 seconds), adding special bookmark folders, and more.
Now, under Musk's revamp plans, this blue-tick verification was brought under the Twitter Blue plan, whose price was hiked up to $7.99 per month. Musk claimed that this would reduce bots and fake accounts on the platform.
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However, once the revamped verification feature was rolled out, it soon became apparent that whoever paid the said amount could get a blue-tick verification. This led to a spate of 'verified' fake accounts on the platform, including the likes of fake LeBron James and a verified 'Jesus Christ'.
Following the onslaught of such accounts, Musk announced on November 22 that he has put the relaunch of Twitter Blue on hold.
Now, Musk has finally offered a rough timeline of when Twitter might relaunch the Twitter Blue verification feature, which is expected to roll out in the coming week.