After the takeover, Elon Musk reorganizes Twitter. There should be a tick not only for subscription customers, but also for verified accounts – but will it stay that way?
New Twitter owner Elon Musk has halted the launch of a new icon for verified accounts of celebrity users after just a few hours. Some users noticed on Wednesday that the gray tick with the word “Official” appeared and then disappeared on their profiles. He “killed it,” Musk then replied to well-known tech blogger Marques Brownlee on Twitter.
Whether Musk meant Brownlee’s mark, the symbol as a whole, or just its introduction on Wednesday, was not entirely clear. But Musk’s description of the tick for subscription customers as a “big balancer” suggested that the “official” mark could already be a thing of the past. “Please note that Twitter will be doing a lot of stupid things in the coming months,” he wrote. “We will keep what works” – and change the other again.
Twitter is again adjusting the reorganization of its verified accounts following its takeover by Elon Musk. Now there should be two different types of verification ticks – one for subscription customers, the other for accounts that have already been verified, for example by celebrities and companies. A week ago, Musk only promised previous verified users an additional label for the subscription.
According to the plan, which was only announced on Wednesday night, there should be two different tick symbols. The well-known white tick on a blue background, which was previously reserved for users selected by Twitter, should in future be reserved for profiles of all subscribers who pay eight dollars a month.
Corporate, government, media and celebrity accounts should also be labeled with a new icon. It’s a gray checkmark on a white background with the word “Official” appended to it, according to a screenshot posted by a Twitter executive. But not all verified accounts today would also be marked as “Official,” she cautioned. Twitter will continue to experiment with how different account types can be made more distinguishable.
Tech billionaire Musk had announced the reorganization of account verification as one of the first steps after the roughly $44 billion takeover of Twitter. He announced that existing verified account holders who don’t want to pay eight dollars a month would lose their ticks in a few months. Twitter later brought up the additional “Official” flag.
Tweets about the new symbol Musk’s “killed” tweet Tweet about “stupid things”