In a bid to combat impersonation on its platform, Twitter is once again adding grey “official” labels to some prominent accounts. The social media service had launched the labels earlier this week before killing them a few hours later. This was the second turbulent week since billionaire Elon Musk took over.
Meanwhile, Twitter said on Thursday that it will no longer brand these accounts as “Official,” despite continuing to fight impersonation and deceit. A tweet from the Twitter Support account read: “We’re not currently putting an “Official” label on accounts but we are aggressively going after impersonation and deception.”
However, as we just confirmed now, at least for some accounts — including Twitter’s own, as well as big companies like Huawei, Amazon, Nike and Coca-Cola. Some media companies, such as The New York Times and The New Yorker, also had the labels as of 9 p.m. Pacific time, while others, like The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, did not.
According to Twitter executive Esther Crawford, verified accounts will now have a label that reads “Official” beneath their username along with a grey verification checkmark. This comes after Twitter decided to introduce a second verification flag to reduce misunderstanding between verified accounts and those that purchase blue ticks.
“Not all previously verified accounts will get the ‘Official’ label and the label is not available for purchase,” New York Post quoted Crawford as saying.
Official pages will be designated for “government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and some public figures,” she added.
Since completing the Twitter deal, the richest man on the planet has made a flurry of decisions impacting the working of the social media giant that has millions of daily active users. According to a Reuters story, Elon Musk’s net worth has fallen below USD 200 billion as a result of investors selling Tesla stock out of concern that the company’s chief executive and major shareholder is more focused on Twitter.
