Twitter Inc plans to launch its verified service with different colored checks for individuals, businesses, and governments next Friday, following a botched initial launch that resulted in an increase in users impersonating celebrities and brands on the platform.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, assigned colors to the categories on Friday: gold for companies, grey for governments, and a blue check for individuals, including celebrities.
“Painful, but necessary,” he said, adding that verified accounts will be manually authenticated before a check is activated.
The redesigned $8-per-month service will allow individuals to have a smaller, secondary logo of their organizations if they are verified by them, he said in another tweet on Friday. “Longer explanation next week.”
The social media platform delayed its relaunch on Monday to make it more secure, as the service is expected to help Twitter grow revenue at a time when Musk is trying to retain advertisers after purchasing the company for $44 billion last month.
Musk’s subscription service, which he described as a “great leveler,” was suspended on November 11 as bogus accounts proliferated, forcing the world’s richest man to restore the “official” label to some users.
For instance, one user pretending to be drug maker Eli Lilly and Co had tweeted that insulin would be free, setting off a drop in the company’s shares and forcing it to issue an apology.
Because of the uproar, numerous corporations, including General Motors (GM.N) and United Airlines (UAL.O), have paused or reduced their advertising on the platform. According to Musk, user growth on Twitter is at an all-time high.
Reuters