Nov 25 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc plans to roll out its verified service for individuals, companies and governments with different color verifications next Friday, after the initial rollout led to a surge of users impersonating celebrities and brands.
Chief Executive Elon Musk on Friday assigned the colors for the categories — gold for corporations, gray for governments and blue check for individuals, including celebrities.
“Painful, but necessary,” he said, adding that verified accounts are manually authorized before a check is processed.
The updated $8-a-month service will allow individuals to keep a smaller, secondary logo of their companies if they’re verified, he said in another tweet on Friday. “Long explanation next week.”
The social media platform on Monday delayed making it a goof, as the service is expected to help Twitter boost revenue as it tries to retain advertisers after Musk bought the company for $44 billion last month.
The subscription service, which Musk has called a “great equalizer,” was suspended on Nov. 11 after a mushrooming of fake accounts forced the world’s richest man to bring back the “official” badge for some users.
For example, a user pretending to be drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. tweeted that insulin was free, sending the company’s stock plummeting and forcing it to apologize.
The turmoil led to many companies including General Motors (GM.N) and United Airlines (UAL.O) Pause or withdraw ads on the platform. However, Musk says Twitter’s user growth is at an all-time high.
Reporting by Akansha Khushi and Aditya Soni in Bangalore; Editing by Soumyatheb Chakraborty and Arun Koiyur
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