Elon Musk relaunches Twitter Blue with new features to prevent impersonation

CEO Elon Musk took a second chance to relaunch Twitter Blue on Monday, after a botched attempt at launching the paid subscription service back in November. With the rollout, users will have to pay $8 a month for web, and $11 a month for iOS. The launch means that users on the platform will be able to get their handles verified through a blue checkmark, and enjoy multiple other features such as an option to edit tweets. 

The announcement of the relaunch was made by Twitter on its official account on Saturday. "We’re relaunching @TwitterBlue on Monday. We’ll begin replacing that ‘official’ label with a gold checkmark for businesses, and later in the week a grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts," the company said.

It also added that “subscribers will be able to change their handle, display name or profile photo, but if they do they’ll temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed again." Business accounts will get a gold checkmark, while official government accounts will get a grey one. 

Will the blue ticks exist after Twitter Blue launch?

Furthermore, those users who were already verified will now be identified as legacy verified accounts and “may not be notable” in the newly launched service. Musk said in a tweet on Monday that the initial blue ticks will be scrapped in a few months, as “the way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical.” 

The relaunch comes after Musk rolled out Twitter Blue in November, but quickly withdrew it due to a surge of impersonation accounts that ensued chaos on the microblogging platform. “Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation. Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals,” the billionaire wrote on his Twitter handle on November 22.