Twitter has seen a number of changes ever since Elon Musk bought the micro-blogging platform for an exorbitant price ($44 Billion to be precise) After shelling out a fortune for Twitter, it was expected that Musk would bring about massive changes to the platform which started off with his promise of ‘Freedom of Speech’ which quickly turned sour as accounts criticising Musk and many journalists started losing their accounts left and right. Then came the Twitter Blue debacle where verified accounts were offered to users at a price of $8 per month. However, the subscription model was then rolled back and is still awaiting a relaunch. Until then, Twitter is figuring out ways to differentiate between legacy verified accounts and Twitter Blue subscribers. The solution? color-coded verified ticks!
Grey tick mark for government accounts on Twitter
Twitter has begun rolling out a grey tick verification mark for government accounts. Whereas, accounts affiliated with businesses have already received a golden tick mark. This new deployment of the grey tick mark has already been deployed for the honourable PM of India’s Twitter account.
It was back on December 12 when Twitter announced it would be changing the ‘official’ label on business accounts with a golden checkmark. While it also announced that grey checkmarks would be added to government and multilateral accounts, it was applied till now. PM Modi seems to be one of the first political figures around the world to receive the grey checkmark on Twitter.
This is one way to curb the increase in impersonation of popular people on Twitter. It was only a few weeks back when Twitter Blue launched a slew of accounts impersonating Elon Musk himself flooded Twitter, talk about a backfire! However, with drastic changes coming to Twitter, it will be interesting how the social media platform transforms under Musk’s leadership.