Musk halts Twitter Blue relaunch indefinitely due to fake accounts

By Ambar Warrick 

Investing.com-- Twitter owner Elon Musk said on Tuesday that the social media platform’s relaunch of its paid verification service will be held off until the firm can effectively prevent account impersonation through the service. 

Musk said in a tweet that the firm was “holding off” on the relaunch of the service until there is “high confidence of stopping impersonation.” The move comes just a week before the November 29 date Musk had initially posited for the relaunch. 

The Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO added that Twitter will probably use check marks of different colors to distinguish between verified organizations and individuals. 

Musk, who recently took over Twitter in a $44 billion acquisition, had attempted to overhaul Twitter’s blue check verification system by turning it into an $8 per month paid service called Twitter Blue.  

But this led to a surge in impersonators of businesses and advertisers on the site, resulting in the withdrawal of the service only a few days after its launch.

Musk had then said the service would relaunch by November 29, and would include more checks to prevent impersonators. He had criticized Twitter’s earlier blue check verification system, comparing it to a medieval feudal system. 

Musk had made Twitter Blue a priority in his overhaul of the social media giant, in an attempt to diversify the company’s revenue beyond advertising.

But Musk’s takeover of Twitter was marked by much discord, as the world’s richest man fired a bulk of the firm’s staff. Several advertisers also pulled out of the social media site, with Musk flagging a potential bankruptcy if the social media platform was unable to attract more revenue.

Still, Musk said in a separate Tweet on Tuesday that the website added 1.6 million daily users in the past week, a record-high gain.

This also comes after the billionaire reversed the suspension of several controversial accounts on the social media platform, including those of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the musician Ye, also known as Kanye West.