Elon Musk has shared his tentative plans for Twitter's new verification system, which he has split into three different tiers. Controversy has embroiled Twitter since Musk took control of the company in late October. One of the billionaire's key focuses has been completely reworking Twitter's verification system and implementing a subscription in its place. To say his plans went awry would be an understatement, but Musk is refusing to back down and has a new verification system coming soon.The original plan for Twitter's verification system was fairly simple. Instead of a system that only verified the accounts of people or organizations susceptible to impersonation, Musk would remove all Verified tags and allow anyone that paid $8 a month to have a blue Twitter checkmark on their account. This immediately led to a wave of impersonations. Musk would go so far as to ban accounts personally mocking him, but more consequential impersonations for major companies led Twitter to quickly scrap that plan.In a response posted on Twitter, where Musk makes most of his announcements regarding the company, the billionaire confirmed that the new verification system should launch next Friday. There will be three tiers of verification. First, a gold checkmark for verified companies. Second, a grey checkmark for verified government accounts. Third, the blue subscription-based checkmark for everyone else on Twitter, which Musk clarifies is for celebrities, too.
Additionally, Musk says that all verified accounts will be "manually authenticated" before their checkmark is activated. No details regarding this authentication process have been provided, let alone how it is different from prior to Musk taking over Twitter. Authentication will, assumedly, prevent some occurrences of impersonation. Otherwise, Twitter's post-Musk policy that aggressively bans impersonation will assumedly make up the difference.
There's no telling whether the new Twitter verification system goes out as Musk has detailed in this tweet. Musk is known for not being entirely forthwith in his statements, as well as frequently changing his mind. There's also the likely possibility that this plan ends up in controversy forcing some other necessary changes. The post-Musk Twitter is as chaotic as it is malleable.
Perhaps the biggest mystery, however, is whether Musk's plan to introduce an $8 subscription verification system on Twitter will be successful even without a major controversy. Musk's decision to allow hate speech on Twitter, as well as granting "amnesty" to banned accounts, has come at the cost of major advertisers and users leaving the platform. The blue checkmark may not have the value Musk thought it would when he bought Twitter.