Musk is planning to reintroduce Twitter’s premium service

Elon Musk announced today that Twitter plans to relaunch its premium service that will offer different coloured check marks to accounts the following week. This is a fresh move to revamp the service after an earlier attempt to do so failed. Next week’s relaunch will take place in an effort to make Twitter more user-friendly. It’s the most recent update to the social networking platform that the billionaire CEO of Tesla bought last month for US$44 billion (NZ$70.4 million), and it comes just one day after Musk claimed he would give “amnesty” for blocked accounts, raising even more confusion for users of the platform.

A flood of counterfeit accounts caused Twitter to earlier halt its premium service, which under Musk granted blue-check labels to anyone paying US$8 (NZ$12.80) per month. The reason for this suspension was because of the influx of imposter accounts. At first, the blue check was only awarded to government agencies, corporations, celebrities, and journalists who had been validated by the site in order to reduce the risk of imitation. Musk stated today that in the most recent version, companies would receive a check in the colour gold, governments will receive a check in the colour grey, and individuals who pay for the service, regardless of whether or not they are celebrities, will receive a check in the colour blue.

He stated that “all verified accounts will be personally validated before check activates,” adding that the process was “painful, but necessary.” He promised to provide a “further explanation” the following week. He stated that the service would “likely start” on the 2nd of December.