Twitter’s “Official” checkmark was removed before it could be implemented entirely. The grey tick made its first appearance on Wednesday, November 9.
Twitter introduced this new tag to identify “official” accounts from those who had only purchased the blue check. It was a strange day because certain news channels were given the official tag, while many streamers and digital celebrities were not.
But the new checkmark vanished as swiftly as it appeared. Perhaps Twitter rapidly recognised that deciding who got the check and who didn’t was difficult. As a result, all publications and people were stripped of the “Official” badge within hours of its rollout.
Apparently, Elon Musk himself made the call.
Popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee stated that his “Official” badge had vanished just over an hour after getting it.
“I just killed it,” Musk replied, later adding, “Blue check will be the great leveller.”
Soon after murdering the “Musk posted, “Please keep in mind that Twitter will do a lot of dumb things in the coming months.” We’ll keep what works and change what doesn’t.”
The grey checkmark indicates Twitter’s instability, which has been hitting the stock price of Musk’s other publicly traded company, Tesla, as investors lose faith in his decision-making.
What happens next is anyone’s guesswork; the “official” badge was a short-lived attempt to solve the problem that blue verification badges were intended to address in the first place but will now be unable to fulfil as a pay-for-play option.
One thing is sure: as long as Musk is in charge, the mayhem will persist.