All verified accounts “will be manually authenticated before verification is enabled,” Musk tweeted.
The Twitter owner did not specify what manual authentication would entail. Accounts with legacy blue ticks on the social media site needed to have their identity verified to get the token, and are mostly used by businesses, celebrities, journalists, politicians and other public figures. It’s unclear if Twitter has a system in place to manually authenticate accounts, especially after drastically reducing its workforce over the past month.
The billionaire took over Twitter last month in a $44 billion deal he offered, then tried to cancel, then offered again. Since the acquisition, Twitter’s workforce has been in chaos. Musk cut about half of his jobs, then issued an ultimatum to the remaining employees to commit to a new “hardcore” Twitter or leave. Hundreds of employees refused to sign the undertaking.
The company’s Trust and Safety team, responsible for combating hate speech and monitoring site content, has undergone great upheavals under Musk – leaders who leave to carefully crafted decisions that are undone. He seems to make a lot of critical decisions by polling Twitter users. Musk restored former President Donald Trump’s account and plans to reinstate almost all accounts previously banned after conducting separate surveys.
Several major advertisers have stopped advertising on the site since Musk took over – jeopardizing Twitter’s main source of income.
Musk upended the old tick system shortly after taking over the company, rolling out a feature in the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service that allowed anyone to pay $7.99 and get a blue check mark on his account, provided he has an Apple ID and a phone. Number.
But the new paid system quickly went awry. Accounts have been created posing as public figures, elected officials and brands. Tweets claiming to be from politicians or corporations have gone viral.
The chaos made it difficult to quickly tell which accounts were valid and which were impersonations, eroding trust in posts on the site. Twitter has disabled new signups for the service.
Friday, musk tweeted that the company is “tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week.” He didn’t say what exactly that would mean for accounts that had checkmarks under the old system, or for accounts that are interested in paying for Twitter’s subscription service.
Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He replied to another user, saying the accounts would be suspended if they engaged in “deliberate impersonation/deception”.
He added: “We’ll see how it goes.”