Twitter appears to have found a new friend in controversy since Elon Musk took over, with the most recent controversy being the outright elimination of paid checkmarks on Twitter, preceded by a wave of celebrities and corporate impersonators on its platform who quickly misused the company’s new paid verification system, introduced just hours earlier.
The message was posted on Twitter’s Slack to clarify, according to Platformer’s managing editor Zoe Schiffer: “An update on what we did tonight: hid the entry point to Twitter Blue, added the ‘official’ label for ONLY advertisers. Note: here is at least one way for users to sign up for Blue. Legacy Blue users can go to subscriptions and upgrade. Note 2: Existing Blue subscribers will still have access to their Blue features.”
However, the platform suspended several verified Twitter accounts after other users posted screenshots of the accounts’ misleading content. The fake verified accounts pretended to be former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Nintendo of America, basketball player LeBron James, software company Valve, and other celebrities.
The verification rollout is already causing significant trust problems within the platform. As a result, the Twitter Blue subscription disappeared. Others who had previously been verified found that their “Official” blue ticks had been restored.
The sources for this piece include an article in ArsTechnica.