Twitter Blue with paid verifications starts rolling out, and there’s chaos

“Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works & change what doesn’t. (sic),” tweeted Elon Musk last night as the company’s Twitter Blue subscription service started to roll out. The new subscription plan lets anyone get verified for the price of $8 price in the US. Unsurprisingly, the rollout did not go all well and there’s some chaos on how this rollout is progressing.
Fake brand accounts get verified
As various reports showed this pay-to-get-verified scheme resulted in several fake accounts getting a blue tick. For instance, someone set up a Nintendo account with Mario flipping off users, there was a fake account belonging to Valve the gaming company, another fake one for LeBron James, and even a fake Donald Trump account. All were verified on the platform for a while, before they were eventually suspended.

the new Twitter verification system is going well 🫠 pic.twitter.com/7eH2H7o24W
— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) November 9, 2022
Twitter also tried a newer take on the whole verification of official and notable accounts vs those who are verified simply paying for the Twitter Blue subscription. So some of the notable accounts initially showed an ‘Official’ tag below their account handle name’. Noted tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) tweeted a screenshot of this new tag being rolled out.

I just killed it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.
We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022
The tag was soon visible on many prominent accounts, including newsrooms, heads of state, etc. But the tag then disappeared. And Musk responded to MKHBD’s tweet on this saying, “I just killed it.” According to a report in the Washington Post, Musk called it an aesthetic nightmare and decided to remove this ‘official tag.’

The Twitter support team tweeted, “We’re not currently putting an “Official” label on accounts but we are aggressively going after impersonation and deception.”
After that, it appeared that Twitter was adding a new message for accounts which were verified simply paying for the subscription services. For notable accounts, if you tap on an account name which has a Blue Tick, Twitter has always shown this message: “This account is verified because it is notable in government, news, entertainment or another designated category. Learn More (with a link).” The message is still visible, though Musk posted that he intends to change it. He wrote, “We are changing the text to say “Legacy Verified. Could be notable, but could also be bogus.”

We are changing the text to say “Legacy Verified. Could be notable, but could also be bogus.”
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 10, 2022
And for those who paid for subscription, Twitter now says, “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue,” and includes a link to the verification support page.
However, Musk has defended the idea of paid verifications and later said in a Twitter Spaces discussion that this will be an effective way to remove fake or spam accounts. Even if a bot or fake account does get verified after paying Twitter, the platform will suspend them, but keep their subscription money.

Twitter Blue: It is iOS only, coming soon to other countries
It also looks like the Twitter Blue rollout is only limited to iOS for now. Musk also tweeted that the company plans to “granularity to the verified badges, such as organisational affiliation & ID verification.” Regarding, the iOS-only decision, Musk said this is intentional and “limited just to iOS in a few countries with very little promotion. As we iron out issues, we will expand worldwide on all platforms.”

Rollout of new verified Blue is intentionally limited just to iOS in a few countries with very little promotion.
As we iron out issues, we will expand worldwide on all platforms.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 10, 2022
Reports also indicate one reason this is only coming to iOS and not Android is that Musk fired the entire Android app developer team. Someone asked when this will roll out in India, and Musk replied, “hopefully, as soon as next week.”