ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Twitter is all set to relaunch its paid account verification system today. The company recently announced that its revamped Twitter Blue service will be back on Monday. It suspended the service last month after a disastrous first attempt at selling the coveted verification checkmark badge, aka the blue tick.
Twitter will relaunch the revamped Blue service today
Selling the verification badge was something Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk wanted to begin as soon as possible. He was likely looking to create a new revenue stream for the company after buying it for a whopping $44 billion. But the multi-billionaire had little idea that rushing through this plan could be devastating. Twitter launched the revamped Blue service on November 9 but was forced to withdraw the service just a couple of days later after mass impersonation. The platform was hit with fake accounts of prominent personalities misleading people. It couldn’t handle the chaos and suspended Twitter Blue. A month later, it is now ready to relaunch Twitter Blue. The company says the service will still cost $8 a month if you subscribe through the web. But if you purchase the subscription on the iOS app, where Apple takes a 30% cut from transactions, you will have to shell out $3 more. But pricing isn’t the primary concern here. It’s about what Twitter has changed to ensure that there will not be a repeat of last month’s chaos. To that end, the company says the blue tick will not be immediately available to anyone subscribing to Blue. It will review the account first. Of course, the review process will be different from Twitter’s original account verification system. Users were previously required to identify themselves as prominent figure under one of the preset categories. But with the Blue subscription, the checkmark will likely be available as soon as the company can verify your identity. You don’t need to be a prominent figure. Additionally, Twitter says Blue subscribers will temporarily lose their checkmark if they change their handle, display name, or profile photo. It will review your account again before reinstating the blue tick. This is to thwart impersonation attempts.
Twitter also announced other changes to its verification labels
With the blue tick now available for anyone paying $8 to Twitter, the company has to come up with new ways to distinguish businesses, celebrities, and other prominent personalities on the platform. Last month, it introduced an “Official” label for those. The social network now plans to replace that with a gold checkmark for businesses and a grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts. Twitter says it will share more information on these plans soon.
— Twitter (@Twitter) December 10, 2022
