(Reuters) – Twitter said on Friday it had reinstated the “official” badge for some accounts, days after removing it, as users reported the disappearance of the new eight-dollar subscription option to get certified his account on the social network.
The move follows a proliferation of fake accounts on the platform after new chief executive Elon Musk asked users to pay eight dollars to get the blue checkmark supposed to authenticate accounts.
This option was previously reserved for verified accounts of politicians, celebrities and other personalities.
Fake accounts of several major brands have popped up on Twitter with a blue tick, including Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX, as well as Eli Lilly, Nestlé and Lockheed Martin
“To combat identity theft, we’ve added an ‘official’ label to some accounts,” the Twitter support account, which bears the ‘official’ label, tweeted on Friday.
Elon Musk wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that he “killed” the new option, just hours after rolling it out.
A number of users have also said that the option to sign up for Twitter Blue, the eight-dollar subscription service with blue badge verification, is gone.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment on this.
(Report Nivedita Balu and Shivani Tanna in Bangalore; French version Diana Mandiá, edited by Sophie Louet)
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