Twitter’s “official”, gray checkmarks are appearing to be making their way back into accounts owned by brands and publishers. The website Initial rollout its official badges — the ones you can’t buy with its new $8 Blue subscription service — on November 9th. It is, however. Paused deploymentThey pulled them down from accounts that had them, including Engadget, just a few minutes later. Esther Crawford, Twitter’s VP of Marketing, explained that checkmarks would be back. However, the social network will hand them out to “governments and commercial entities” first.
As The VergeAccording to reports, the badge is now appearing on company and brand accounts such as Coca-Cola’s or Nintendo of America’s. Twitter accounts also display the gray checkmark. Some publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg WiredYou can also get them now. It is unclear if rollout actually started at this point and if it has any connection with the influx in parody and impersonator accounts that have flooded website since the $8 verification was made.
Soon after the company’s paid verification scheme was live, fake accounts purchased a subscription and got verified. Fake accounts started tweeting questionable things. One fake account, Nintendo of America, posted a picture of Mario giving Twitter a middle finger. Another fake LeBron Jam announced that he was seeking a trade. Its support account. Twitter said yesterdayIt is not yet “putting an “Official” label on accounts”, but it is “aggressively going to after impersonation, deception.” However, the gray checkmark could be used to help people determine if they are dealing with real companies or public figures.
The company responded to the situation by implementing a new rule. Block accountsCreated after November 9, 2009, from the $8 Blue subscription to avoid them not getting instant verification. Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, announced that accounts performing parody impersonations must now include the word “parody”, not just in their bio. This has been part of Twitter’s policy over the yearsHowever, we believe the website will be applying the rule more strictly as a result of recent events.
Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include “parody” in their name, not just in bio
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022
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