Has Elon Musk changed his mind about the gray badge?
This morning, we introduced you to the new Twitter certification badge. It may not have lasted long. Elon Musk had the great idea of changing the way the famous blue badge works, reserving it for paying users (Twitter Blue subscription). At the same time, Twitter created a new gray “Official” certification badge to identify only a portion of currently verified users. This novelty will have been talked about… for the space of a day.
I just killed it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022
Because in this simple and direct tweet, in response to Marques Brownlee who had noticed the disappearance of the gray badge, the new boss of the social network simply announces its deletion. Remember, however, that the deployment of this new feature began today. Twitter’s help pages had already been updated to explain how it works. Or at least, to try to explain the inexplicable.
But ultimately, the Official label would not really be dead…
A few minutes later, it was the turn of Esther Crawford, the product manager, to speak. Again, via a response to a user on Twitter.
She now announces that the Official label is still planned as part of Twitter Blue. She specifies that Elon Musk “mentioned the fact that [Twitter] no longer focuses on labeling individuals “Official” at this time”. The confusion is total. Would the Official label ultimately be reserved for Twitter Blue subscribers? Only for accounts representing a State and for brand accounts? Would Twitter then reverse the logic presented this morning? Or… does it mean something else?
Twitter will do stupid things, and it has already started
In another tweet of which he has the secret, 6 minutes later, Elon Musk announces the color: “Twitter is going to do a lot of stupid things in the next few months. We will keep what works and change what doesn’t.
Elon Musk will therefore have had time to assess, in one day, that a feature being deployed “does not work”. He had obviously failed to measure, upstream, that it was a bad idea. He preferred to impose his vision, before being brought to his senses. Without knowing exactly what will happen to the different badges. We should have more details soon, since the announcement of the evolutions of the paid plan Twitter Blue is expected after the mid-term elections in the USA.
Will Twitter become a permanent laboratory?
Twitter will therefore have designed and then deployed a new certification model, in record time, before changing its mind – or rather, before its new boss changes his mind. At least it was faster than hesitation on the button Edit. At the same time, the social network will have carried out a massive wave of layoffs, before recalling certain talents. If Twitter were a series, we could say that the writers have a heightened sense of imagination. But that wouldn’t be believable. And Twitter is not a series, Twitter is not a toy. It is unfortunately a reality, for the people who built it, and for all those who still use it today. The future will tell us where “stupid things” of the social network will lead him in the coming months.