Twitter Blue relaunch delayed, might use new colour checks for organizations

Twitter proprietor Elon Musk mentioned on Monday night that the corporate is planning to delay the relaunch of its $8 monthly Blue Verified service. Musk mentioned Twitter will “most likely use completely different colour examine for organizations than people.”

Twitter Blue was launched earlier this month however was pulled after customers abused the brand new paid possibility, which Musk hoped would drive new income to the platform. It allowed customers to pay for a Blue checkmark, beforehand reserved for verified customers.

Musk had earlier mentioned he deliberate to relaunch Twitter Blue on Nov. 29.

The paid Blue subscription service led to a plethora of pranksters creating imposter accounts on Twitter. It left the platform much more ripe for misinformation, and lots of cheaply acquired checkmarks had been used to impersonate manufacturers, politicians and celebrities with unflattering messages.

A consumer impersonating pharmaceutical large Eli Lily, for instance, tweeted “we’re excited to announce insulin is free now.”

Eli Lilly’s inventory worth dropped sharply after the false message was posted, and so did different pharmaceutical firms together with AbbVie, which was additionally impersonated on Twitter. At the moment, main inventory indices had been optimistic, amid a market rally.

Twitter has trialed utilizing two examine marks, together with a Blue one for paid and previously-verified customers and a grey “Official” checkmark for some manufacturers, comparable to information organizations. However there was a complicated overlap, the place some accounts had each checkmarks. Musk killed the “Offical” checkmark the identical day it rolled out.

The delay comes after Musk gutted a lot of Twitter’s employees. About half of the corporate’s 7,500 workers had been laid off earlier this month. Then, final week, about one other 1,200 full-time workers left, in keeping with The New York Instances, after Musk demanded workers decide to working “lengthy hours at excessive depth” on his imaginative and prescient for “Twitter 2.0” or submit their resignations.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

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