CNN Business
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Days after Elon Musk promised to disrupt Twitter’s account verification process by letting anyone choose to pay a blue checkmark, he appears to have accepted that some high-profile users do need actual verification after all.
Twitter said late Tuesday that to resolve ambiguity about which accounts on its platform are authenticated — not those who simply pay $8 a month to put a blue checkmark on their profile — the Companies will introduce a new grey checkmark as part of the or “official” label.
One screenshot A post by the company’s director of product management, Esther Crawford, shows what the new label will look like. The screenshot shows Twitter’s own account profile, including the standard blue checkmark next to its display name, as well as a grey checkmark and the word “official” below its account handle.
The new feature appears to be rolling out Wednesday morning. Accounts on Twitter receive a grey checkmark and an “official” label. Other accounts that have since received treatment include the United Nations as well as CNN and other media outlets.
“Not all previously verified accounts will receive the ‘official’ label, and the label is not purchasable,” Crawford tweet“Accounts that will receive it include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures.”
Crawford also confirmed that the upcoming option to pay for the blue checkmark will not include an identity verification requirement.
“We’ll continue to try ways to differentiate between account types,” Crawford Say.
Twitter has faced widespread criticism in recent days for its plans to change the meaning of the blue checkmark from identifying an identified individual, particularly a public figure, to a new meaning that means users have paid for the company’s Twitter Blue subscription. Serve.
Election security experts have warned that bad actors could pay blue checkmarks and then change their display names to impersonate government officials or other authoritative sources of information.
After seemingly preparing to roll out the feature over the weekend, Twitter later decided to delay the rollout until after the mid-term, CNN previously reported. Also over the weekend, Musk vowed that accounts found to be engaging in undisclosed impersonation would be permanently banned without warning, reversing an earlier promise that so-called “permanent bans” would be extremely rare.
Musk’s statement comes after numerous celebrity accounts used their verification status to mock Musk’s paid verification program, by modifying their accounts to mimic his.