Elon Musk Reveals When Twitter Blue Will ‘Probably’ Be Back

The Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through a magnifier in this illustration taken on Oct. 27, 2022. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

Elon Musk said that Twitter Blue, the platform’s $8 blue-check subscription service, will likely be back at the end of this week after the company suspended the service on Nov. 11 after a wave of blue-check accounts impersonating big brands posted controversial content.

A number of users reported at the end of the week of Nov. 6 that the new subscription option for the blue verification check mark had vanished, while Reuters reported that a source at Twitter told the outlet that the offering has been put on hold.

While Twitter didn’t reply to a query from The Epoch Times as to how long the blue-check freeze would last, the company’s new chief said in a post on the platform that Twitter Blue would “probably” be back by the end of the week of Nov. 13.

Musk rolled out the Twitter Blue subscription service to help grow revenue at the company, which he recently said was losing around $4 million per day.

The blue check mark was previously reserved for verified accounts of public figures such as celebrities, journalists, and politicians.

Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion on Oct. 27 and took control of the platform, he has sought to revamp the service, including by looking at ways to boost profits, pledging to cut down on bots, and vowing to crack down on deceptive activity on the platform.

Trolls and Impersonations

Musk recently announced a permanent ban on Twitter users impersonating other people on the platform without specifying that they were operating as “parody” accounts.

That came after trolls rushed to take advantage of the Twitter Blue model to get verified blue checks and began impersonating prominent figures and brands.

In one case, a blue-check account impersonating McDonald’s joked that all the restaurant’s locations would “now be serving beyond meat,” before adding that “our meat is far beyond its expiration date!” according to Business Insider.

Another came from a blue-check account impersonating pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which reportedly put out a post saying it was “excited to announce insulin is free now,” prompting the actual Eli Lilly corporate account to apologize “to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account.”

Another of Musk’s efforts to fight trolls posting on the platform under the guise of well-known brands was to add an “Official” label to some accounts.

“To combat impersonation, we’ve added an ‘Official’ label to some accounts,” Twitter’s support account, which has the “official” tag, stated in a Twitter post on Nov. 11.

Since Musk took over Twitter, he’s also introduced a number of cost-cutting measures, including laying off a large portion of staff.

The turmoil has caused a number of companies to pause or pull back from advertising on the platform since Musk, a self-described free speech “absolutist,” took control of the company and began to make changes, including vowing to ease restrictions on users’ ability to express themselves freely on the platform.

Musk has called Twitter a “digital town square,” where a broad range of ideas can be debated “in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence.”

On Nov. 14, Musk touched the controversy surrounding his purchase of Twitter in remarks delivered by remote video during a session at the B-20 business forum in Indonesia ahead of a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies.

“There’s no way to make everyone happy, that’s for sure,” he said.

Musk also said that Twitter should be more video-based and give content creators a way to earn a living by sharing some revenue with them, though he didn’t go into specifics.