Elon Musk: halting Twitter Blue till impersonation stops, added 1.6 million users last week

Elon Musk on November 22 announced that Twitter has paused re-launch of the $8 subscription-based 'Blue Verification' mark until there is a curb in impersonation. He added the microblogging site would in the future allocate different colour check marks to differentiate organizations and individuals.

The Twitter Blue subscription plan was rolled out in a few countries before being paused due to the impersonation of accounts like Elon Musk himself, Jesus Christ and more.

Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation.

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Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022

Musk further claimed that Twitter added 1.6 million daily active users this past week, calling it "another all-time high."

Twitter added 1.6M daily active users this past week, another all-time high pic.twitter.com/Si3cRYnvyD

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022

The now Musk-owned Twitter, halted fee-based blue tick verification badges on November 11 after making the decision to charge users $8 for the premium blue tick verification badge. The social media platform had to reconsider after a large number of fake "verified" accounts started to appear on Twitter.

Earlier, Musk had announced that any accounts attempting to imitate others would be removed unless they explicitly stated that they were parody accounts.

Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been tumultuous for the company as he initiated wide scale global layoffs. The recent firing included top executives. Meanwhile, in another hit, Twitter Inc.'s head of French operations, Damien Viel, said he was quitting the social media platform.

C’est fini Fierté, honneur et mission accomplie. Au revoir #twitterfrance. Quelle aventure ! Quelle equipe ! Quelles rencontres ! Merci à tous pour ces 7 années incroyables et intenses. #workhardplayhard #OCaptainMyCaptain #LoveWhereYouWorked

— damien viel (@damienviel) November 20, 2022

Musk had laid off more Twitter Inc. workers from the sales side of the social network’s business beginning late on November 20, further trimming a staff that had already been decimated by cuts and resignations, Bloomberg reported.

Last week, Musk had asked workers to commit to his more “hard core” version of the company or leave. Sales employees signed on to his vision in greater numbers than workers on the technical side, which saw mass resignations, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk is using the cuts to balance out the remaining staff, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal decisions.