Twitter rolls back 'Official' grey label on accounts within hours; Musk says 'slew of dumb things' to come
The decision to roll out the 'Official' label was made to provide a second verification label to limit confusion between legitimate accounts and those that pay for their blue ticks. Twitter currently has approximately 423,000 verified accounts.
FollowMicro-blogging giant Twitter underwent many modifications following billionaire Elon Musk's takeover. The most recent was when the blogging site introduced an 'Official' label for particular verified accounts; however, hours after being rolled out, Twitter on Thursday announced that the 'Official' label would be removed.
The decision to roll out the 'Official' label was made to provide a second verification label to limit confusion between legitimate accounts and those that pay for their blue ticks. According to reports, Twitter began adding grey labels to prominent accounts on Wednesday, including Coca-Cola, Nike, and Apple, to indicate authenticity. The labels started to fade a few hours later.
Popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee also received the badge. He tweeted, "There are two verified checks. One that appears next to your profile in replies, retweets, and elsewhere: It indicates that you are a Twitter Blue subscriber. The other ('Official') only shows up on certain profiles and the timeline." After tweeting that the 'official' badge on his account had disappeared, Musk responded, "I just killed," indicating that the feature's development has been halted for the time being.
Justifying the shifts, Twitter Support clarified by tweeting, "We are not currently tagging accounts as 'Official,' but we are aggressively going after impersonation and deception." Musk also tweeted separately, "Twitter will do a lot of dumb things in the coming months. We'll keep what works and change what doesn't."
The current Twitter verification system has been in place since 2009, designed to ensure that high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they claim to be. Twitter currently has approximately 423,000 verified accounts. Many of them belong to celebrities, corporations, and politicians. Many verified accounts, however, are thought to be the work of individual journalists.
By making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee, experts have warned that it may encourage impersonations, the spreading of false information, and scams.
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