Elon Musk said that he was delaying the relaunch of the Twitter Blue Verified checkmark after users abused the system and pretended to be celebrities, government officials, and legitimate organizations following an earlier launch.
“Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation,” Musk stated in a tweet on Tuesday. “Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals,” he said, without giving any further details on the new system, while many users pitched in their ideas for a robust checkmark.
“One color for public figures and institutions, another color for people who sign up for verification,” said far-right political commentator James Lindsay, who was previously banned on the platform. Musk had said that the Blue Verified will be rolled out starting Nov. 29, and that he was waiting for it to be “rock solid.”
Twitter gave government accounts and official brands an option to display a gray “Official” checkmark, and offered the blue version for users willing to pay $8 monthly, but soon rescinded the offers. There were confusions as some accounts showed both checkmarks.
Twitter’s blue checkmark was previously reserved for verified accounts of famous personalities, including politicians, government officials, and journalists.
However, Musk confirmed earlier in the month that some Twitter employees were selling the verification badges for “upwards of $15,000,” according to WSBChairman, a user with 900,000 followers.
Badges that verified users were supposed to be used for checking the authenticity of the account, but it created a “lord and peasant” system on the platform.
State of Twitter
According to SimilarWeb, the number of Twitter users in October was 7 billion, an increase of nearly 3 percent compared to 6.8 billion in September.
“Twitter added 1.6 million daily active users this past week, another all-time high,” said Musk in a tweet on Tuesday. He posted a graph showing 213.8 million daily active users in the week ended Nov. 20, adding that “this will improve a lot as Twitter becomes fast to use outside of North America, Western Europe & Japan.”
Musk’s Nov. 19 poll asking whether former President Donald Trump should be reinstated on the platform was voted by over 15 million users, with 134 million having seen the poll, said Musk.
Trump’s account was restored after a majority of users voted to get the former president back on Twitter. However, it remains unclear whether Trump, who used to be a prolific influencer with nearly 90 million followers, will come back.
Musk has brought back several prominent influencers onto the platform, including Jordan Peterson, satirical Christian website The Babylon Bee, and investigative journalism watchdog Project Veritas, who were censored by the earlier management.
Several users are also quitting the platform after the Musk takeover, citing disagreements with how the industrialist is running the company.
Musicians Jack White and Trent Reznor are among the latest quitters. “We don’t need the arrogance of the billionaire class to feel like they can just come in and solve everything. Even without him involved, I just find that it has become such a toxic environment. For my mental health, I need to tune out. I don’t feel good being there anymore,” said Reznor in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
CBS News announced it was leaving Twitter, citing “an abundance of caution,” but later reversed course and said that it will resume posting content.
Luxury brand Balenciaga removed its Twitter account, but has not stated any reasons publicly.
Celebrities who are no longer on the platform include Whoopi Goldberg, Shonda Rhimes, Gigi Hadid, Toni Braxton, Sara Bareilles, Erik Larsen, and Téa Leoni, according to a report by Rolling Stone magazine.
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Naveen Athrappully is a news reporter covering business and world events at The Epoch Times.
