Elon Musk says Twitter’s verified service with colors will launch next week

Nov 25 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc plans to roll out its verified service next Friday with different-colored checks for individuals, companies and governments, after a botched launch led to a surge in users impersonating celebrities and brands on the platform.

CEO Elon Musk on Friday assigned colors for the categories — gold for companies, gray for governments and a blue check for individuals including celebrities.

“Painful but necessary,” he said, adding that verified accounts will be manually authenticated before a check is activated.

The revamped $8 per month service will allow individuals to have a smaller, secondary logo for their organizations if verified by them, he said in another tweet on Friday. “Longer explanation next week.”

The social media platform on Monday delayed its relaunch to foolproof it, as the service is expected to help Twitter boost revenue at a time when Musk is trying to retain advertisers after buying the company last month for $44 billion.

The subscription service, which Musk called a “big leveler”, was paused on November 11 when fake accounts cropped up, forcing the world’s richest man to bring back the “official” brand to some users.

For example, a user posing as drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co had tweeted that insulin would be free, triggering a drop in the company’s shares and forcing it to issue an apology.

The turmoil led several companies including General Motors ( GM.N ) and United Airlines ( UAL.O ) to stop or withdraw ads on the platform. However, user growth on Twitter is at a record high level, according to Musk.

Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun Koyyur

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