Musk-led Twitter releases new “official” tags, only to remove them hours later

Twitter is expanding $7.99 per month version its Twitter Blue subscription, which adds a blue checkmark to your profile. But as Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s move to paid checkmarks raises concerns about fate, Twitter also rolled out a new “Official” tag for featured accounts.

However, in news that probably won’t surprise you, the official label rollout is already chaotic. Some accounts – in between by Ars Technica– He had the official label today and then he disappeared. It’s unclear whether the tags are gone for good.

“I just killed it,” Musk wrote Today when YouTuber Marques Brownlee asked why his official tag disappeared.

While Musk appears to have ended the entire official tagging system within hours of launching it, Twitter CEO Esther Crawford said shortly after Musk’s tweet that it doesn’t die completely. “The official tag is still being rolled out as part of @TwitterBlue’s rollout – we’re focusing on government and commercial entities to start with,” he said. he wrote. “What you saw mentioned was that right now we’re not focused on labeling individuals ‘Official’.”

But it’s unclear when the official label will be rolled out as suggested by Crawford. He said that it is expanding to government and commercial entities and that Musk was only referring to tags for individuals, but the Official tag was also removed from the accounts of large commercial entities, such as Apple’s Twitter profile. Prominent government accounts such as President Biden’s Twitter page have a different “official United States government tag.” NASA briefly It had a new official tag before it was removed.

Musk: “Twitter is going to do a lot of stupid things”

It has musk he proclaimed That paid verification will replace “Twitter’s current system of lords and peasants” and give “power to the people.” But according to Twitter’s new support pages, which may or may not be out of date, Musk’s “I just killed it” statement, paying $8 a month for a blue checkmark doesn’t mean the label says it’s your account. that you will receive the official it’s really remarkable.

“In addition to blue brands, Twitter also applies visual identity signals labels and badges in account profiles to provide more context about different account types and to help differentiate them,” a Twitter support page he says “The official profile label applies to government accounts (institutional accounts, elected or appointed officials and multilateral organizations), certain political organizations such as political parties, commercial companies, including business partners, major brands, media and publishers, and others in some audiences. figures”.

It also said Twitter’s support page has tags for state media, government organizations, candidates for elected office and automated accounts.

That page may be out of date with some official tags quickly removed, and that could all change again under Musk. unexpected property style “Be aware that Twitter is going to do a lot of dumb things in the coming months.” Musk wrote today. “We’ll keep what works and change what doesn’t.”

With the Official Tag system, Musk may have had second thoughts because it dilutes any significance a blue tag earned through Twitter Blue subscriptions might have.