Nov 25 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc is planning to roll out
its verified service next Friday with different colored checks
for individuals, companies and governments, after a botched
initial launch led to a surge in users impersonating celebrities
and brands on the platform.
Chief Executive Elon Musk on Friday allotted colors for the
categories - gold for companies, grey 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 of 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
make it foolproof as the service is expected to help Twitter
grow revenue at a time when Musk is trying to retain advertisers
after buying the company last month for $44 billion.
The subscription service, which was termed by Musk as a
"great leveler", was paused on Nov. 11 as fake accounts
mushroomed, forcing the world's richest man to bring back the
"official" badge to some users.
For instance, one user pretending to be drugmaker Eli Lilly
and Co had tweeted that insulin would be free, setting
off a drop in the company's shares and forcing it to issue an
apology.
The turmoil led several companies including General Motors
and United Airlines to pause or pull back ads on
the platform. User growth on Twitter, however, is at an all-time
high, according to Musk.
(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru;
Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun koyyur)