Twitter reinstates “official” label to curb impersonation nightmare

Twitter’s spiral into chaos hasn’t slowed down. The platform has faced widespread problems with impersonation since opening its blue checkmark earlier in the week to more (paying) users. Twitter is plagued by users impersonating brands (e.g. Eli Lilly or Nintendo) creating impersonations that can lead to serious problems. advertising nightmare for the platform.

Twitter doesn’t seem to have a solid solution to the problem and has gone back and forth in its attempts, disabling and reenabling features seemingly at random. Recent example: gray “official” label that’s been reintroduced for some accounts.

Twitter’s latest round of issues started when new-CEO Elon Musk introduced Verified checkmarks as part of the service’s Twitter Blue subscription. The site was soon overtaken by fake and impersonated accounts. The site was filled with funny content, such as fake company announcements and Mario flipping a bird. However, it became nearly impossible to use the site without carefully examining the posts.

Although this made it confusing for users, brands were left with little choice but to mislead their viewers. To combat this, Twitter introduced a new “official” verification label on certain accounts (including Polygon’s). This was a poor solution but it did work. Musk ended the program on the day it was launched.

But with the impersonation issues not slowing down at all, Twitter reintroduced its “official” verification label on Friday. Perhaps even more significant, Twitter Blue was halted entirely by the company, which should stop the flood of new checkmarks.