You get a blue checkmark! You get a blue checkmark! You get a blue checkmark!
Today, Twitter officially rolled out its new version of Twitter Blue, the company’s paid subscription service for the social media platform. The new version of Twitter Blue, as promised by Elon Musk, now includes the famous blue checkmark for those who subscribe to the service.
If you subscribe to Twitter Blue today, you’ll now get a blue checkmark without the need for any further verification. On a Twitter Space that Musk attended this afternoon, the CEO said that he wasn’t too worried about this. Musk said that, in addition to the barrier of paying $8 per month for the service, the company would also use credit card and phone data for verification purposes. It sounds like if a bad actor attempted to create multiple accounts using the same phone or card, Twitter would be able to track and shut those accounts down (or deny them from being created in the first place).
Outside of getting the blue checkmark, there isn’t much new with the new version of Twitter Blue. The company does say that features like priority replies, a reduction in ads, and more will all be “coming soon.”
Twitter Blue isn’t the only big change that Twitter made today. In addition to rolling out the new version of the subscription service, it also rolled out the new “Official” verification badge for accounts…which it then killed off hours later. Elon Musk says he personally made the decision to kill the “Official” badge, calling the blue checkmark the “great leveler.”
Twitter has been in a state of constant change since Musk took over the company almost two weeks ago. The new CEO laid off half the company (then hired some of them back), relaunched Twitter Blue, fired the executive team, and dissolved the board. We’ll see what’s next for the company in the coming weeks and months.
