May Twitter be seeking to carry again legacy verified accounts?
That might be a stretch, however it’s experimenting with a new way to point out an account’s verification historical past, which would come with a brand new itemizing of when an account had been verified, and signifying whether or not it was legacy verified or not.
As you possibly can see on this instance, posted by app researcher Nima Owji, Twitter’s testing out a brand new wording for its verification information pop-up, which would come with an indicator of when that particular account was verified.
Twitter beforehand displayed two totally different variations of this information field, which confirmed whether or not an account was both legacy verified or had subscribed to Twitter Blue. However with the removal of legacy blue ticks from the app last month, Twitter not wanted the legacy explainer, and eliminated it from the app.
However since then, Twitter has additionally gifted verification to accounts with over a million followers, that means that not all the accounts that at the moment have a blue tick are subscribed to Twitter Blue. That might be seen as a false endorsement, and possibly this new strategy is a step in direction of lowering that concern, and offering extra readability over how precisely every account has obtained its checkmark.
If carried out, that might imply that every one accounts verified earlier than November 2022, when Elon Musk introduced the new paid verification scheme, can be legacy verified, whereas all accounts after wouldn’t.
Would that be sufficient, from a authorized standpoint, to save lots of Twitter if a celeb have been to sue over the false illustration that they’ve bought a blue tick?
I’d hazard a guess that it most likely wouldn’t – however possibly, Twitter may make the argument that this does present that readability, whereas it could even be a useful measure for customers to know which accounts could be trusted, based mostly on their earlier verification historical past.
Which may, as famous, open the door for Twitter to carry again all of the legacy verified ticks.
Legacy checkmarks are still active in the app, Twitter’s simply hidden them – and possibly, this new indicator may give Twitter a way to stroll again the elimination of legacy blue ticks, and restore a measure of safety and belief within the course of.
As a result of whereas not all legacy checkmarks have been awarded on advantage, as Elon has noted, most of the 400k or so blue ticks got to customers based mostly on correct checks and processes, and did give customers one other measure of belief within the app. Restoring them would additionally add extra worth again to Twitter’s paid checkmark system, which individuals are making an attempt to purchase into – as a result of proper now, the one factor a blue tick represents is that this particular person is paying $8 monthly to make use of the app.
If all celebrities and sports activities stars obtained their tick again, possibly extra customers would wish to additionally purchase in – whereas it may additionally assist to deal with issues with blue tick accounts dominating conversations within the app, which can be impacting engagement.
Once more, it’s most likely a stretch to imagine that that is the place Twitter is headed with this potential replace, however it might be one other marker that its $8 verification scheme hasn’t delivered as hoped.
