If you didn’t jump at the chance to give Elon Musk $7.99 for a blue check while you could, you might have to wait a bit longer. Originally slated to relaunch on November 29, Musk tweeted Monday evening that the product will be put on hold until “there is high confidence of stopping impersonation.”
The initial roll out of Twitter Blue Verified (or, the “I-paid-Elon-$7.99” blue check) was utter chaos. Of course, the feature was quickly weaponized to help bad actors pretend to be celebrities, corporations and government officials. One account impersonated the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to post, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.” The tweet was viewed millions of times before it was removed. The company’s stock dropped 4.37%.
Musk added in his tweet that Twitter “will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.” Already, Twitter has tested using a grey “official” designation beneath high-profile accounts, though that feature has been turned on and off multiple times since it was first rolled out.
According to a report from The Verge, Musk also talked about building features like encrypted direct messages and video calls in an internal presentation named “Twitter 2.0.” This is not the first time he has talked about introducing end-to-end encrypted DMs. Musk hinted that Twitter is working on this feature in a reply to app research Jane Manchun Wong’s tweet that highlighted code related to that. Earlier this month, the Twitter CEO said that the “goal of Twitter DM is to superset Signal.”
As some Twitter users try out alternative platforms like Mastodon and Hive, Musk says that Twitter has added 1.6 million monetizable daily active users this week, hitting a company all-time high of 259.4 million. Notably, Musk entered a months-long legal dispute after he deemed these same metrics inaccurate in an attempt to reverse course on his Twitter purchase.