IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Elon Musk has announced plan to remove old verification badges in the coming months due to the extensive modifications the microblogging platform has undergone since its takeover.
The removal would presumably allow more users to subscribe to Twitter Blue by paying the mandatory $8 monthly fee imposed by Musk, Twitter new owner, to acquire and retain the blue verification badge.
Musk’s $7.99/month Twitter Blue subscription will become the only way to get the “verified” blue check-mark — except that the identities of the users who pay for that are not actually going to be verified by Twitter.
Twitter first introduced verified accounts in 2009, in order to help users identify that celebrities, politicians, companies, entertainment brands, news organizations and other accounts “of public interest” are the real deal and not impostor or parody accounts.
Since Twitter Blue “verification” launched 9 November, numerous parody and fake Twitter accounts have cropped up.
“Far too many corrupt legacy Blue ‘verification’ checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months,” Musk tweeted Thursday in reply to a user who asked why her “legacy” verification status was now showing up as a Twitter Blue verified account.
“Blue check will be the great leveler,” Musk tweeted on Wednesday, after he abruptly canceled Twitter’s rollout of separate “official” labels for high-profile accounts, which were supposed to replace Twitter’s legacy verification.
Entrepreneur and multibillionaire Mark Cuban tweeted at Musk that the change “killed the most valuable part of Twitter, the ability to quickly and easily find information from sources I have chosen to trust.”
Cuban added: “I just spent too much time muting all the newly purchased checkmark accts in an attempt to make my verified mentions useful again.”
Musk replied: “It’s working for me. That said, we can definitely make the verified mentions tab more usable.
For now, the blue check-mark can mean two different things: either that an account was verified under the previous verification criteria (i.e., that it’s an active, notable and authentic account), or that the account has an active subscription to the new Twitter Blue subscription service.
Clicking on a Twitter account’s check-mark badge will pull up a message that explains which “verified” status it has.
Musk, the world’s richest individual who is CEO of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX, completed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter two weeks ago.
Since the Tesla owner finalized the takeover deal in October, he has implemented jolting changes to the platform, including dissolving Twitter’s nine-member board of directors and mass layoffs of about 75 per cent of the company’s 7,500 workers.
Esther Crawford, Twitter’s director of product management, also announced on Wednesday that the social media platform would be adding a new feature of “official label” for some specified accounts, emphasizing that not all previously verified profiles will get access to the new feature.
Ms. Crawford explained that the accounts that will get the official label are strictly distinguished profiles.