Twitter CEO Elon Musk kills "Official" tag after less than 24 hours

It hasn't even been 24 hours yet, and Twitter has scrapped its newly-launched "Official" checkmark. The feature was originally intended to help users distinguish accounts that have been verified via Twitter Blue and accounts that are verified as official.

Twitter's new CEO Elon Musk confirmed this in a reply to Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee. When the latter found that his "Official" tag disappeared just a few hours after he noticed that he has now two verified checks, Musk replied with "I just killed it."

He then went on to say that the original Twitter blue check "will be the great level," indicating that the company will go back to its original plans. Twitter’s verified blue checkmark was originally only used to authenticate high-profile accounts, but was later made available to everyone for $8 a month under the new Twitter Blue subscription.

In a separate tweet, Musk said that the company will "do lots of dumb things in coming months."

Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.

We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

Meanwhile, Twitter's director of product management Esther Crawford, who posted about the "Official" tag yesterday, also indicated that Twitter will undergo plenty of changes in the future:

There are no sacred cows in product at Twitter anymore. Elon is willing to try lots of things -- many will fail, some will succeed. The goal is to find the right mix of successful changes to ensure the long-term health and growth of the business. https://t.co/cMf27EmmpJ
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 9, 2022

Finally, Twitter Support's Twitter account also confirmed that they are no longer providing the new checkmark to users. Instead, they are now going after accounts that engage in impersonation and deception. During the weekend, Elon Musk said that the microblogging site will permanently ban accounts engaging in impersonation — unless they indicate that they are a parody.

Source: Elon Musk on Twitter