November 25, (THEWILL) – The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter, Elon Musk, has added two more colour badges on Twitter.
He revealed on Friday that the platform’s new badges will be used to distinguish between accounts.
“Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week,” he tweeted.
“Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates.”
In another tweet, Musk said all verified individual accounts would have the same blue check, but some would eventually be able to display a secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an organisation if verified as such by that organisation.
Earlier on, Musk had proposed a subscription fee of $8 a month to allow users to obtain the blue check, which stands for verified accounts. It was previously free but reserved for organisations and public figures in an attempt to avoid impersonation and misinformation.
The first rollout of Musk’s subscription plan in early November quickly went south, with many accounts paying for the blue check and then impersonating world leaders, celebrities or companies.
Responding to the backlash, Musk initially postponed the launch date to November 29, before delaying it once more. It now appears the feature will launch on December 2.
Musk has said he wants to charge users for subscriptions to the social media platform to diversify its income stream. Twitter currently depends on advertising for 90 per cent of its revenue.
Several major brands have withdrawn from advertising on the platform since Musk bought it, fearing that his promised relaxation of content moderation could open their companies up to being associated with objectionable content.
According to the NGO Media Matters, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have announced that they are suspending or “have apparently suspended” their spending on the social network.
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