It has been a more than turbulent week for the entire community of Twitter and everything has been derived from the matter with Elon Musk acquiring the platform to initiate a radical series of changes.
In our account of the first week with the executive in charge of the social network, we witnessed a brutal number of movements that seem typical of some bloody and ultra-violent episode of game of Thrones.
Previous CEO he was expelled, the board of directors was dissolved in its key pieces, Musk proclaimed himself top boss of Twitter and immediately made public his intentions to start charging a monthly fee for maintaining the blue verification mark.
That unexpected turn made some celebrities, like Stephen King, They started a pitched battle against Elon, with everything and the firm threat of leaving the platform if he started charging for something that in principle is not a luxury.
Now, after so much turbulence, the ground finally looks a little clearer than before and we finally know what the concrete plan is with the monthly charge issue and the blue check mark.
It’s honestly not great, but it’s not terrible either.
Twitter will now have two brands: one free and one paid
From the official account on the social network of Esther Crawford, Vice President of Twitter in charge of the entire project to renew the paid version of the social network, Twitter Blue, the first details on how everything will work later are released.
What Elon Musk said stands. The blue tick we’ve known all our lives to verify and confirm the identity of certain accounts will now cost $8.
But a second new verification mark has also been added, in shades of gray and with the legend of “Official”, designated for accounts that are, as their name indicates, official:
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
As Crawford explains, the “official” label will be reserved for “government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and some public figures.”
But the truth is that it is not clear how Twitter will designate which accounts qualify or do not qualify to achieve this mark. The review process for each application, to say the least, is also a bit of a mystery at this point.
But the executive did reveal that not all accounts previously verified with the blue mark will get the new gray label, which will come at no cost.