Twitter’s new top chief Elon Musk has caused chaos on the social media platform by making changes to its verification process.
To try and put some order in the verification system, Musk said that the platform will roll out a new set of colors for different users.
Companies will have gold ticks, governments will have grey ticks, and individuals will all have blue checks. All verified individuals will have the same blue check regardless of whether they are celebrities, journalists, government officials, public figures, or just the average person.
The initial launch of his verification process was botched and led to a surge in users impersonating celebrities and brands on the platform.
Musk called the move “painful, but necessary.” He claimed all verified accounts would be manually authenticated before a check is activated.
The revamped $8-per-month service will allow individuals to have a smaller, secondary logo of their organizations if verified by them. This part was not yet elaborated on, with Musk saying a longer explanation will come next week.
Twitter delayed its blue check verification relaunch on Monday. Musk said it was necessary in order to establish high confidence in stopping impersonation.
Musk is trying to retain Twitter’s advertisers after buying the company last month for $44 billion, after months of drama around the purchase. The new subscription service was labeled by Musk as a “great leveler.”
But he had to pause it on Nov. 11 after an explosion of fake accounts. He had to bring back the “official” badge to some users.
For instance, one user pretending to be drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co had tweeted that insulin would be free, setting off a drop in the company’s shares and forcing it to issue an apology.
There was a lot of turmoil on Twitter for a few weeks. Several companies, including General Motors and United Airlines, paused or pulled back their ads on the platform.
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