After all, Twitter’s new verification strategy will be a two-tiered structure. Esther Crawford, the Twitter VP in charge of the revised Twitter Blue membership, said that the company would utilise a distinct “official” designation for “chosen” users in addition to the blue checkmarks.
The label was previously discovered on internal Twitter builds, but this is the first time anybody at the business has verified its presence. Twitter, which recently lay off the majority of its communications department, did not reply quickly to a request for comment.
The “official” classification, according to Crawford, will be reserved for “government accounts, commercial firms, business partners, significant media outlets, publishers, and select public personalities.” It’s unclear how Twitter will determine which accounts qualify or if they’ll have to go through further screening. “Not all previously verified accounts will get the ‘Official’ label, and the label is not for sale,” Crawford said on Twitter.
A lot of folks have asked about how you'll be able to distinguish between @TwitterBlue subscribers with blue checkmarks and accounts that are verified as official, which is why we’re introducing the “Official" label to select accounts when we launch. pic.twitter.com/0p2Ae5nWpO
— Esther Crawford ? (@esthercrawford) November 8, 2022
The approach seems to be intended to alleviate some of the concerns expressed against Musk’s concept for Twitter Blue and verification. Paying for verification, in particular, might allow fraudsters and impersonators to take over discussions and propagate disinformation. Crawford isn’t the only Twitter CEO to speak out about the problems. Twitter’s head of integrity, Yoel Roth, has also said that the company wants to “increase proactive examination of Blue Verified accounts that exhibit indicators of impersonating another user.” Elon Musk also said that Twitter will immediately delete any impersonators after a lot of users changed their identities to Elon Musk in order to make a point about his ambitions.
Of course, the new “official” designations sound a lot like… Twitter’s current verification system, which Musk and others have attacked as being unjust. Furthermore, the fact that it would only be supplied to “chosen” accounts decided by Twitter suggests that the business will once again make a judgement about whether accounts are “notable,” which has been condemned by Twitter executives, including Roth.
Both the “official” label and the expanded verification are planned to be available in the coming days.
