After messing up the first launch of Twitter’s “power to the people” verification system, Elon Musk said that the social network will tentatively roll out a new multicolored verification system next week.
The owner of Twitter said that, under this scheme, companies will get a gold checkmark, government officials will get a grey checkmark — probably similar to the “official” checkmark it’s currently trying out with some prominent accounts — and the blue checkmark will be dedicated to individuals even if they are not celebrities. That would mean that the blue checkmark will be used with legacy verified accounts and folks who buy Twitter’s new $8 per month paid plan.
Musk added that the company aims to manually authenticate all verifications before the new verification system goes live. It’s not clear what he means by that as Twitter Blue subscribers will get a blue checkmark. Not only that, but Twitter’s reduced workforce will be under pressure to check every verification manually to avoid any impersonation or spam.
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
Musk further explained that individuals can have a second tiny logo to note if they are part of a certain organization. That organization also has to verify that the individual represents them or works with them in some way. He added that decision to apply blue checkmarks to all individual accounts was taken as notability of a person is a subjective matter.
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
Earlier this month, Musk paused the revamped Twitter Blue program and said it would resume on November 29. However, this week, the Tesla CEO put this plan on hold until “there is a high level of stopping impersonation.” Notably, this was the first time he talked about using multiple colors for verification.
He didn’t specify if this new verification scheme will occur at the same time as the rollout of the relaunch of Twitter Blue. It’s likely that this verification relaunch is for existing verified accounts, companies and government officials — and not paid subscribers — at the moment.
Twitter took another step to stop spam and fake accounts when Twitter Blue is finally relaunched. Last week, the company changed its terms so that newly created accounts have to wait 90 days from the date of account creation before they can buy a Twitter Blue subscription.
When Musk-led Twitter first rolled out the new verification program on November 9, many accounts began impersonating brands, athletes and celebrities. That caused Twitter to halt the project immediately. Now, he is taking all measures possible to avoid that kind of chaos again.
Earlier today, Musk said that Twitter will offer all suspended accounts “a general amnesty” starting next week based on the result of the poll he ran a few days ago.
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