Entrepreneur Elon Musk has said that Twitter would hold off on the relaunch of its blue check subscription until the imposter issue is cleared, thereby further delaying the plan to bring back the verification service.
Musk, the social media platform's new owner, tweeted: "Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation." He added that Twitter might "probably use different colour check for organizations than individuals."
Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022
Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.
One of the first steps Musk did after taking over the platform was to introduce the $8 blue tick verification plan but it resulted in imposters swarming the microblogging site. Following this, Twitter paused the subscription plan and said that the service would only be relaunched on November 29.
The platform had earlier given blue ticks only to verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures. But, after Musk took over, he changed it into a subscription service wherein anyone with $8 could buy the blue tick. This, according to the Tesla CEO, was needed to help Twitter grow revenue after advertisers ditched the platform.
Probe into takeover?
There are reports that the US government is probing into Musk's $44 billion takeover of the platform and is seeking details of the confidential agreements that Musk is said to have made with foreign investors.
According to a report by Bloomberg, there are national-security concerns over whether these confidential agreements allow access to users' data. Earlier, many lawmakers had called on the authorities to do a thorough vetting of the Saudi stake in Twitter.
However, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had recently stated that she sees "no basis" for investigating the billionaire's acquisition of Twitter. "We have really no basis - to the best of my knowledge - to examine the finances of his company. I'm not aware of concerns that would cause us to [investigate]," said Yellen in an interview with CBS News.
Meanwhile, Musk is also considering more layoffs, especially from the sales team. Reports quoting sources said Musk's new move is to balance out each team, but it’s still not clear how many people lost their jobs.
Last week, hundreds of employees resigned from Twitter after Elon Musk asked them to commit to an "extremely hardcore" work culture with "long hours and high intensity." The workers were asked to reply 'yes' to a Google form as a sign of their commitment or leave the company with severance.
