Twitter tweeted Saturday that its Twitter Blue subscription service will relaunch on Monday, giving subscribers the now controversial “blue check mark,” but this time with some sort of vetting process meant to prevent impersonations on the site. The check mark and other features will cost users $8 a month if they subscribe via the web and $11 per month if they subscribe on iOS, Twitter said.
“When you subscribe you’ll get Edit Tweet, 1080p video uploads, reader mode, and a blue checkmark (after your account has been reviewed),” the company said in its tweet thread. It isn’t clear what that account review involves, though an image included in the thread mentions the need for a “verified phone number.”
New Twitter owner Elon Musk has been fiddling with verification check marks since he took over. Last month, he introduced an $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription that blurred the line between authenticated individuals and paid accounts. That led to a slew of people impersonating celebrities and corporations, which caused mayhem and prompted Twitter to pause signups for Twitter Blue.
On Saturday, Esther Crawford, a product lead at Twitter, said in her own tweet that “we’ve added a review step before applying a blue checkmark to an account as one of our new steps to combat impersonation.” When asked by a Twitter user if granting the blue check mark would involve verifying a user by way of an ID, Crawford replied, “We don’t have ID verification in this update.”
Before Musk came up with the idea of combining the blue check mark with the Twitter Blue subscription service, the verification process had traditionally involved things like submitting a government-issued ID and offering evidence that you were a “prominently recognized individual.” Musk’s pay-for-verification setup had critics saying the blue check mark had become meaningless.
In late November, Musk tweeted a plan that would see companies getting a gold verification check mark, with government entities getting one that’s gray. “Blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates,” Musk tweeted at the time, saying more details would be provided later. He also said then that individuals could have a smaller secondary logo as well showing “they belong to an org if verified as such by that org.”
Saturday’s thread from Twitter said the plan for the gold and gray check marks for businesses and government will be going into effect. It also said Twitter Blue subscribers “will be able to change their handle, display name or profile photo, but if they do they’ll temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed again.” During the recent impersonation chaos, some Twitter users had changed their display names to pose as others.
Twitter didn’t respond to an email Saturday seeking more information about the verification review process.
Saturday’s Twitter thread also said Twitter Blue subscribers would “rocket to the top of replies, mentions and search,” would see half the ads and would be able to post longer videos.
Twitter Blue subscribers who already signed up via iOS for the earlier $8 a month price will get a notification about the new $11 monthly iOS cost and can then choose to subscribe via the web instead, at the $8 rate, Crawford tweeted. Last month, Musk complained about the fees Apple charges developers and companies for customer purchases made via the App Store on iOS.
Crawford said the iOS and web versions would offer the same features, and that Android users can purchase on the web and use Twitter Blue on their devices.
