Twitter’s new verification programme temporarily rolled out several weeks ago, one of the first major changes Elon Musk brought to the platform. It was quickly rolled back as it caused a lot of confusion and impersonation problems, after which Mush announced that it would not roll it out again until those issues are solved. Now, Elon Musk has announced that the Twitter check mark programme could return on Friday, December 2nd, with a new procedure to verify individual identities in order to resolve impersonation issues.
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The CEO described the new process as “painful, but necessary”, as it will be a wholly manual authentication process. They will also come with different colours now – the original blue checks for people, gold for companies, and grey for the governments or authorities.
The original verification changes that Musk forced on the platform turned out to be a pretty bad idea, even with the $8 fee associated with it. After Musk ignored warnings from Twitter’s own trust and safety staff, the platform’s paid Twitter Blue subscriptions rolled out and quickly resulted in some ‘verified’ accounts impersonating notable public figures and brands, driving away advertisers from the “high-risk” platform.
Musk had previously said that Twitter “will probably use different colour check for organizations than individuals,” though this is the first time he’s offered more information. “All verified individual humans will have the same blue check, as boundary of what constitutes ‘notable’ is otherwise too subjective,” Musk said. “Individuals can have a secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org.”
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
More details will follow sometime next week.
Musk has also used the Twitter audience to make several decisions for the platform via various polls. For example, he asked the users whether Twitter should offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam. As a result of the poll, which he called a “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” (the voice of the people, the voice of God), he said he would begin reinstating controversial accounts.
