Twitter announced an upgrade to its subscription verification model for businesses on Monday, providing a new way for companies and brands to distinguish themselves and their affiliates on the platform.
Companies on the social network will now be displayed with a square profile image and a golden checkmark beside their name if they are subscribed to Twitter Blue for Business.
Key affiliated individuals of those companies or brands will also feature the company’s square profile photo as a small badge beside their names, but those individuals will retain the long-standing circular profile picture.
The gold checkmark, which Twitter began applying to businesses last week, will be available only to accounts that subscribe to Twitter Blue for Business.
The update is a continuation of the social network’s “blue checkmark” verification system, which has been overhauled since Twitter was purchased by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Previously, accounts had to be active, notable, and authentic to receive a blue checkmark. However, Musk exposed that employees at the company were biased in how they handed them out under the previous regime.
Colored Checkmarks
Currently, only users in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom can subscribe to Twitter Blue on an Apple device for $11 per month or via the web for $8 per month. It is not yet available on Android devices.Musk has said the subscription model also reduces the number of bots, or fake accounts, active on the social network.
The subscription model includes a gold checkmark designated for certain business accounts. There will be a gray checkmark for government and multilateral accounts.
Having a blue checkmark means either an account was verified under Twitter’s previous verification criteria, or that the account has an active subscription to Twitter’s new Twitter Blue subscription product and meets certain requirements.
The subscription model service will be rolled out more widely in 2023, the social network said. Musk has said that soon “legacy” checkmarks handed out at the discretion of executives under the old system will be removed from verified accounts.
CEO Poll
The debut of the new subscription service comes after Musk ran a poll on Dec. 18 asking whether he should stand down as CEO of the company less than two months after he purchased the platform, claiming that he'd abide by its results.Musk responded to multiple posts about the possibility of his quitting the top job before the voting finished.
It’s unclear if Musk will step down per the poll after his comments sparked speculation that the poll might have been a trap for bot accounts.
“I’m hoping that Elon did this poll as a honeypot to catch all the deep state bots. The dataset for this poll will contain most of them. Some good data-mining and he could kill them all in one go,” user KimDotCom said.
“Interesting,” Musk replied.
Musk told a Delaware court last month that he would reduce his time at Twitter and eventually find someone else to take over as CEO.
When Musk released the poll, several Twitter users speculated that, regardless of the results, Musk would remain CEO for several months until he found a suitable replacement.
