Elon Musk Delays Twitter Blue Verification Indefinitely, Waiting for Higher Confidence in Stopping Inpersonation

Twitter owner Elon Musk has announced that the rollout of the new Twitter Blue subscription, which includes automatic verification, is being delayed. Rather than launch on November 29th as intended, the monthly subscription service is halted “until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation.”

Merely a week prior to its rollout, Musk confirms that Twitter is postponing Twitter Blue’s relaunch indefinitely. After Musk gained ownership of Twitter following a $44 billion acquisition, his first major change to the platform was to introduce a new verification system. Rather than Twitter’s long-integrated system of verifying a user prior to receiving a checkmark, Musk’s new Twitter Blue includes an automatic verification system. This new process is being developed to tackle the bot and spam issue plaguing Twitter, according to Musk. Under new ownership, Twitter is now taking a more harsh stance on bots and spam accounts.

Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation.

Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022

However, the new verification system poses problems of its own. Earlier this month, when Musk first opened up the $9.99 CAD Twitter Blue subscription, parody accounts and comical impersonations started flooding the social media platform. In fact, many accounts even started impersonating Musk himself. The kicker is that each of these accounts had its own checkmark, signalling they are the verified personality. However, this became an immediate problem for brands as accounts such as Nintendo, Eli Lilly, and others were hit significantly.

Can't imagine why all the advertisers are pulling out of Twitter lmao pic.twitter.com/pg55WXkxhS

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) November 9, 2022

This then forced Musk and the Twitter team (now significantly reduced) to delay its official launch until after the mid-term elections in the U.S. and to ensure it was “rock solid.” Apparently, the interworkings of the subscription service still need to be looked at. Musk also notes that the team is looking to introduce different coloured checkmarks for organizations and individuals.

To mitigate impersonation issues, Twitter previously introduced the ‘Official’ badge on a whim to identify real brands and personalities. This gray badge appeared under a user’s name and handle making their “Official” status. However, Musk quickly killed the feature as he did not like its appearance.

Currently, there’s no timeline on when Twitter could see the re-introduction of Twitter Blue.