The Twitter account verification system is in chaos right now. And, unfortunately, it looks like the swing will be part of history for a while. The social network is now in the hands of Elon Musk re-activated the “Official” badge in some accounts whose identity is likely to be forced out.
Twitter, let’s remember used to display a blue verification icon on those accounts that are related. The goal was simple: to prove that there was a real person behind it. That is: it is not a false account that tries to impersonate the identity of the subject in question, a parody account, or someone who shares the same name.
Elon Musk, however, thought it would be nice if anyone could get a badge if they paid for a Twitter Blue subscription (which costs $8). From an economic point of view (raising more income), this may make sense, but the purpose of the audit was not originally to increase income social network, but to make Twitter a more secure platform.
The fruits of this movement were not long in coming. Many accounts have begun impersonating the identity of the respective people or companies. and by paying for a Twitter Blue subscription, they received the aforementioned verification badge – their identity was not verified – reaching a degree of trust that they would not have received with the previous system. The result is ironic, given that Elon Musk has been one of the most critical of spam, bots, and scams on the platform.
Twitter quickly banned the aforementioned accounts. But the damage was done and the credibility of the verification badge was called into question. Elon Musk in this situation announced the appearance of a second icon under the username, which simply says “Official”. This icon suddenly appeared on the accounts of hundreds of politicians, media outlets and the like.
Problem? For this purpose, Twitter had an icon. The one that has been active for many years has given good results and has been recognized by the users of the platform. The new system made everything unnecessarily confusing. And it didn’t solve any of the problems.
Elon Musk in response to the well-known youtuber MKBHD has announced the withdrawal of this “official” badge that it has just implemented. But the step back did not last even a weekthen the social network reactivated it in thousands of accounts this Friday. Another swipe that does nothing but increase confusion among platform users.
What happens to verification on Twitter?
Elon Musk’s goal get more people on twitter blue, a paid subscription to improve the economic situation of a company that is losing money every day. So, making it so that any subscriber can get a confirmation badge is another claim for a quick increase in income. The problem is that this initiative directly affects the trust and even security of the platform. And these first days of testing showed it.
It is difficult to see what the future of inspections will be like. Elon Musk is known for sudden and unexpected steering turns. And in his early days on Twitter, those dynamics were easy to see. This makes it difficult to make any predictions about it. What is a fact is that Twitter had a fully operational system that, at least for now, has become rather chaotic.
How do I know if the account is really official or if you paid for it?
Right now, There are two ways to find out if an account is indeed official. or, in fact, the blue badge is the result of following Twitter Blue.
- If the account name has the text “Official” in it, as you can see in the image above, it’s an account that has been verified by Twitter.
- However, some official accounts do not have the “Official” badge and are official. In these cases, simply tap or click on the blue checkmark icon. After that, a message is displayed indicating whether the badge is the result of verifying this account (this is an official account) or, conversely, the result of Twitter Blue.
Source: Hiper Textual
