Nov 25 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc plans to launch its verified service next Friday, offering people, companies and governments differently colored checks after a botched initial launch saw users impersonate celebrities on the platform And the number of brands has exploded.
Chief Executive Elon Musk assigned colors to the categories on Friday — gold for companies, gray for governments and blue for individuals, including celebrities.
“Painful, but necessary,” he said, adding that verified accounts would be manually verified before checking could be activated.
In another tweet on Friday, he said the revamped $8-a-month service would allow individuals to own their organization’s smaller, secondary logo as long as they’re verified. “There will be a more detailed explanation next week.”
The social media platform delayed its relaunch on Monday to make it foolproof, 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 dubbed the “great balancer,” was suspended on Nov. 11. 11 Fake accounts have sprung up, forcing the world’s richest man to bring back the “official” badge to some users.
For example, a user of counterfeit drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co tweeted that insulin would be provided for free, sending the company’s share price down and forcing an apology.
The turmoil has led several companies, including General Motors (GM.N ) and United Airlines (UAL.O ), to suspend or withdraw ads from the platform. According to Musk, however, user growth on Twitter is at an all-time high.
Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun koyyur
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