An image of the new Twitter owner, Elon Musk, surrounded by Twitter logos in this illustration in Warsaw, Poland on November 8, 2022.
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Twitter owner Elon Musk said Monday night that the company is planning to delay the relaunch of its $8-a-month Blue Verified service. Musk said Twitter “will likely use a different color check for organizations than individuals.”
Twitter Blue was launched earlier this month but was dragged along with the user abused the new paid option, which Musk hopes will bring new revenue to the platform. It allows users to pay for a blue checkmark, previously reserved for verified users.
Musk previously said that he planned to relaunch Twitter Blue on November 29.
Blue’s paid subscription service has resulted in a lot pranksters create fake accounts on Twitter. It makes the platform even more ripe for misinformation, and many cheap checkmarks have been used to impersonate brands, politicians and celebrities with unflattering messages.
For example, a user impersonating pharmaceutical giant Eli Lily tweeted “we’re excited to announce that insulin is now free.”
Eli Lilly’s stock price decline after the false announcement was posted and other pharmaceutical companies including AbbVie were impersonated on Twitter. At the time, the major stock indexes were all positive, amid a market rally.
Twitter has experimented with using two checkmarks, including a Blue checkmark for paid and previously verified users and a gray “Official” check mark for some brands, such as organizations. news agency. But there is a confusing overlap, where some accounts have both check marks. musk killed the “Official” checkmark the same day it was released.
The delay comes after Musk gutted several Twitter employees. About half of the company’s 7,500 employees were laid off earlier this month. Then, last week, about 1,200 other full-time employees left, according to The New York Times, after Musk asked employees to commit to working “hours of intensity” because of his vision of the future. “Twitter 2.0” or submit your resignation.
— Lora Kolodny of CNBC contributed to this report.
