After the wave of fake accounts
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Subscription verification on Twitter won’t return until November 29
The Twitter logo.
Photo: AP/Michael Dwyer
San Francisco Twitter will not re-enable the ability to purchase a verification tick with subscription payments for another two weeks. The feature was quickly put on hold after a spate of fake brand and celebrity accounts.
Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk then announced that they would be reintroduced by the end of this week. Now the subscription should only become available on November 29, as Musk wrote on Twitter Wednesday night.
Twitter had implemented the reorganization announced by Musk in the allotment of ticks Wednesday last week. So far they have been granted to celebrities, politicians and companies after a Twitter audit. Under the new model, anyone who pays eight dollars a month gets the check. There is no identity check. The checkmark looks the same in both cases. Whether it is a previous, actually verified account or a newly purchased tick is dealing with, it only becomes clear from the text after clicking on the symbol.
Some users have created credible fake accounts with the ticks they’ve purchased, for example for basketball star LeBron James, game company Nintendo and former US President Donald Trump. Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has apologized to Twitter users who were led to believe by a fake account that insulin would be given away for free in the future. An allegedly verified fake Chiquita account announced that it has overthrown the Brazilian government. After a few days, Twitter turned the feature off again.
Musk bought Twitter for about $44 billion in late October. Since then, the company has struggled with, among other things, the reluctance of large advertising clients. Ad revenue recently made up about 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue.
