Twitter to introduce gold, grey and blue ticks for verification system, says Elon Musk

Companies, governments and individuals will be identified under the new plan

Elon Musk said Twitter's subscription-based verification system will be relaunched tentatively next Friday. AFP

Twitter's system of verification has taken another twist after new owner Elon Musk said different coloured check marks will be introduced.

Earlier this week, Mr Musk, the world's richest person, said the new subscription-based verification would not be relaunched until there was “high confidence of stopping impersonation”.

Now, he said it would be relaunched tentatively next Friday.

“Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not) and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. Painful, but necessary,” he tweeted.

“All verified individual humans will have same blue check, as boundary of what constitutes “notable” is otherwise too subjective. Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org,” he said. “Longer explanation next week.”

Turmoil had ensued after the introduction of the $8 subscription plan following Mr Musk's $44 billion acquisition.

It was initially suspended after a chaotic wave of fake accounts with the new blue ticks parodied US presidents, well-known dead people and large companies.

He suggested it would be reintroduced by the end of the month.

The blue check mark was previously reserved for the verified accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures.

However, the subscription fee opened the blue check mark up to anybody.

Mr Musk said Twitter was losing $4 million a day and needed new revenue streams, especially as he was struggling to retain advertisers.

He said on Thursday that he would grant an “amnesty” for suspended accounts, a move that online safety experts predict will lead to a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.

The billionaire’s announcement on Thursday came after he asked — in a poll posted to his timeline — users to vote on reinstatements for accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam”.