The Twitter owner announced that the platform will require users to pay $8 a month to get the blue verification checkmark, essentially hollowing out what the feature is all about. Now, to save face, social media is adding a second grey checkmark to all accounts that are actually verified to be credible and represent real individuals or organizations.
At the time of writing, outlets like The New York Times and The Verge have grey checkmarks, while Twitter’s new owner and current CEO Elon Musk doesn’t.
Esther Crawford, current Twitter VP and head of the Blue subscriptions program, confirmed in a tweet that the “official” label will be used to distinguish subscribers from actual verified accounts. She added in a subsequent tweet that all accounts with blue checks prior to today will not automatically get the new label, and the official label will not be sold.
According to the vice president, “the accounts that will receive it include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media, publishers and some public figures”. The company will continue to experiment with ways to differentiate account types, which means the solution may not be final.
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