Twitter recently took down its Blue Verification feature and won’t be restoring it for a couple of weeks. The social network’s FAQ page has been updated to warn new accounts that they will have to wait 90 days before they can subscribe to Blue. The company also claims the right to impose waiting periods “at our discretion and without notice.”
The new policy came just a few weeks after Twitter banned new accounts from joining Blue. Twitter faced a flood of impersonators and trolls using their new checkmarks to confuse users just two days after implementing its pay-to-verify system. The company attempted to use a secondary “official” checkmark for public figures and organizations, but the new Twitter owner scrapped the system just hours after it went live.
Musk said that a “new release” would deter fraudsters by removing the Blue checkmark if they changed their name — they wouldn’t get it back until Twitter confirmed that the new handle abided by the Terms of Service. However, there is no official policy in place at this time.
There is a lot of pressure for these policies to be changed. Senator Ed Markey grilled Elon Musk about the ease with which fake accounts can be created under the new verification system and suggested that Congress may step in if the entrepreneur does not fix Twitter and his other brands. Twitter is also experiencing internal turmoil as employees resign in droves in response to Musk’s demands for “long hours” from “hardcore” employees.
