Twitter Reveals How It’ll Label Users Who Are Actually Verified

The “Official” badge will only be visible when an account’s profile page is checked, either by visiting the Twitter profile page URL or opening it in a small window by hovering the cursor over the account name in a tweet. Either way, it’s still a hassle and an open invitation for scams. Unsurprisingly, the whole mess is Twitter’s own doing.

Ever since Musk first started rambling about Twitter’s verification system, a bunch of people suggested the idea of color-coding the verification badge. Twitter could keep the blue badge exclusive to influential institutions and personalities, while a checkmark insignia in any other color would signify that the account is run by a real person after identity verification, proving that it’s not a bot.

The new Twitter Blue does not include ID verification — it’s an opt-in, paid subscription that offers a blue checkmark and access to select features. We’ll continue to experiment with ways to differentiate between account types.

— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 8, 2022

However, Musk’s pay-to-get-the-blue-badge system has only complicated the trust-building part that came with a blue badge account. Twitter Blue doesn’t require any form of identity verification, which means there is always a risk of bad actors funding a bunch of paid verified accounts to wreak havoc, now with an aura of legitimacy that was not possible before. It’s also rather odd that despite Musk’s embarrassingly bullish attitude towards selling the $8 per month subscription service, Twitter Blue might actually end up being a loss-maker for the company. It would be interesting to see if Twitter does an about-face in this scenario, too, just like it did for laid-off employees by requesting some of them to come back.