Blue tick, grey tick & labels: Elon Musk's current plans for Twitter’s ‘verification’ programme is a hot mess

Twitter has already started implementing its blue tick for “verified users” in certain countries. Up until now, Twitter’s Blue Tick for verified users basically meant that the accounts which had the blue tick, were verified profiles of “people of prominence.” Now though, it basically means that the user, who has a blue tick, is a verified user with a Twitter Blue subscription. Right now, for people who subscribe to the new package, their account instantly adds a verified check, but the other new benefits aren’t available yet. According to a support page, “only accounts subscribed to Twitter Blue on iOS on or after November 9, 2022 are eligible for the blue checkmark moving forward.” It’s unclear when the new subscription will become available for users on Android, Twitter web, or in countries where Twitter Blue wasn’t already available. And new Twitter accounts created on or after Wednesday aren’t eligible to sign up for Blue “at this time,” Twitter says. This of course is creating a lot of confusion. On the surface, both, verified users who were given the badge as per the old system, and users who have subscribed to Twitter Blue, get the same Blue Tick. Only when you click on the verified badge do you get to see what the blue tick of a particular profile actually means.

welcome to the new blue tick Twitter. There are now two blue ticks, so you can tell who’s paying $8 or not 🙃 pic.twitter.com/ALzMSRrztq

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) November 9, 2022

Elon Musk proposed that prominent people, like those from the government or prominent celebrities, will be getting a different kind of badge, a grey one, although, the grey tick is nowhere to be seen.   Twitter had rolled out a rather confusing new feature, before rolling it back and removing it. After briefly rolling out new “Official” verified designations on Twitter, the grey badges disappeared this morning, just a few hours after they were first spotted. “I just killed it,” tweeted Twitter’s billionaire owner Elon Musk, responding to a tweet about the grey check disappearing, from tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee.

I just killed it

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

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The grey checks were supposed to be Twitter’s way of helping the public identify legitimate accounts for public figures, celebrities, news outlets, and other high-profile users. To be clear, that’s what the original blue check was for — until Musk said the verified badge would be available for purchase via Twitter Blue, the platform’s paid subscription service. Clearly, it doesn’t look like Elon Musk has a well-thought plan on how he wants to implement Twitter Blue Tick for Twitter Blue subscribers and how he plans to go about Twitter Grey Check for actually verified users. Decisions which will have a permanent and lasting impact on the platform are being taken on the fly and in a blase manner. The biggest indicator for this would be the manner in which people were fired from Twitter last week, and then about dozens of fired employees being asked to come back. Musk’s most recent tweet about all the fiasco seems to be an admission. The “Chief Twit” and the “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” tweeted out saying that in the months to come, “Twitter will be lots of dumb things in coming months” and that they “will keep what works & change what doesn’t.”

Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.

We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

Although his admission is admirable, what’s problematic is that such experiments, with features being added publically and then removing it, decimates the user experience. That is why app developers take months testing out features in alpha and beta phases.