Starting next week, plans to launch its verified subscription service but a bit differently.
CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the new verification system will be colour-coded—gold checks for companies, grey checks for governments, and blue checks for individuals, including celebrities.
He added that “all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates… Painful, but necessary.”
In another tweet, the Twitter chief noted that verified individuals can have a secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an organisation if they are verified by that organisation. “Longer explanation next week,” he added.
Earlier this week, Musk said that the company was holding off the relaunch of the verified service until there was “high confidence of stopping impersonation”. The initial verification subscription service was paused on November 11 in the wake of a surge in fake accounts, posing as brands and celebrities.
In addition to a verified tick badge, Twitter’s subscription service will give users priority in replies, mentions and searches, which, according to Musk, is “essential to defeat spam/scam.”
Until now, the blue ‘verified’ badge has been free of charge—a service that identifies “active, notable, and authentic accounts” that are of public interest—but the new plan will be chargeable at $8 per month.
In the past, the social media company has relied mainly on advertising revenue. However, Musk also plans to generate revenue through subscriptions as he is trying to retain advertisers, post his $44 billion acquisition.
Advertising on the social media platform may be taking a hit but daily active users are on the rise. “Twitter added 1.6M daily active users this past week, another all-time high,” Musk tweeted at the start of this week.
