Elon Musk has said Twitter verification will return next week with colour-coded categories for individuals, government accounts and companies.
Twitter’s new owner said the platform would launch a new verification service next Friday, having pulled an earlier attempt at a revamp this month after it triggered a flood of impostor accounts.
According to Musk, verified accounts will display a blue checkmark for individuals, a grey checkmark for "government," and a gold checkmark for businesses. The Tesla CEO did not specify whether state departments or state-owned businesses would also fall under the government tick.
Sorry for the delay, we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2022
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.
All verified accounts would be "manually authenticated," he added, before being given the tick. More than 400,000 Twitter accounts currently have blue ticks, designating them as reliable sources.
Musk did not specify whether the new verification service would be a part of Twitter Blue, the premium service that charges $7.99 for a blue tick and was relaunched this month. Twitter Blue's price for a blue tick sparked a wave of account impersonations as users seized the chance to pose as well-known brands like Eli Lilly and Tesla for less than $10. The redesign was abandoned shortly after.
The verification change was announced as Musk paved the way for the return of banned accounts to the platform next week. He announced on Thursday that a “general amnesty” would be offered to suspended accounts provided they had not broken the law or “engaged in egregious spam”. Banned accounts on Twitter had included the British rightwing commentator Katie Hopkins and Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former adviser.