Twitter To Introduce ‘Official’ Label For Select Verified Accounts

Social media platform Twitter will soon unveil “Official” label for selected verified accounts. The label will be given to certain government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures.

Making the announcement, Twitter’s early stage products executive Esther Crawford said that feature will make a clear distinction between Twitter Blue subscribers with blue checkmarks from accounts that are verified as official.

Crawford clarified that while Twitter Blue subscribers will undoubtedly get the blue checkmark but they will not be verified unlike accounts with ‘Official’ label. 

“The new Twitter Blue does not include ID verification – it’s an opt-in, paid subscription that offers a blue checkmark and access to select features. We’ll continue to experiment with ways to differentiate between account types,” she tweeted.

But it looks like Twitter hasn’t decided on how it wants to implement the distinction between official accounts and blue checkmark-accounts just as yet.

"They view bluechecks as a fetishized object and users who want them as marks they can charge. They don’t care about the verification that’s actually made the network more valuable. This extractive, self defeating approach will define how they do business," said Jason Goldman, a former Twitter board member while reacting to the latest announcement.

He also said the blue checkmark verification and non-verification "creates a confusing system" .

Last week, Twitter CEO Elon Musk had said that the social media platform would be charging USD 8 per month for users who want to avail the blue checkmark on their accounts. These users would have to subscribe to Twitter Blue premium subscription mandatorily.