One month after Elon Musk's controversial Twitter takeover the world's richest man has now announced that the social media platform is launching blue, gold, and gray checkmarks.
The Tesla CEO began his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in April, before finally acquiring it on October 27. During his first two weeks as the freshly minted CEO, he allegedly fired over 50% of the company's workforce, eliminated working from home, made himself the sole director, and issued an ultimatum for remaining staff about implementing an "extremely hardcore" new workplace, as previously reported.
In fact, the 51-year-old's headline-grabbing takeover is apparently so toxic that the head of Twitter France quit earlier this week, however, the reasons behind his resignation are not yet clear.
Musk has been vocal for a while about his goal to make Twitter a platform for freedom of speech, having reportedly reactivated the accounts of Donald Trump, Kanye West, and Andrew Tate - who were all previously banned from the platform for violating the app's policies.
In his quest to promote free speech, the South-African born billionaire opted to monetize Twitter, offering users the chance to subscribe to Twitter Blue for $7.99 a month. The subscription would enable regular users to receive blue checkmarks without having to be verified by Twitter, something that the app used to separate official accounts - such as accounts for celebrities, public figures, and global businesses - from regular accounts.
However, that swiftly became drama-filled as internet trolls began creating fake parody accounts of real businesses, buying the blue check, and tweeting ridiculous messages from the accounts. As the accounts appeared to be verified, many people and media outlets believed the tweets to be from the actual companies.
For example, one person created a fake account for insulin producer Eli Lilly and subsequently tweeted: "We are excited to announce insulin is free now." Unfortunately, within hours the company's stock dropped by 4.5%, according to Mashable.
Musk subsequently halted the subscription service.
Now, he's announced that there are to be three tiers to the subscription going forward, and that all users with checkmarks will be manually authenticated.
"Sorry for the delay, we're tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week. 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. Painful, but necessary," Musk tweeted.
Many people commented that this was not enough, including one user who wrote: "Distinguishing between companies, governments, & individuals makes sense, but we still need a way to tell the difference (at a glance) between public figures and the multitude of individuals who have (or choose to use) the exact same name on Twitter. Otherwise confusion results."
Musk then replied: "Deliberate impersonation/deception will result in account suspension. Organizational affiliation, bio and follower count distinguish between people who genuinely have the exact same name. We shall see how it goes."
Despite the chaos that has followed the business magnate's takeover, tech news outlet The Verge has detailed that Twitter has 238 million daily users, but that number has allegedly increased to 250 million under the company's latest CEO.
