Here's what happened to those gray Twitter check marks

In the midst of writing an article about Twitter’s preliminary rollout of a brand new grey examine mark verification badge, we observed one thing odd: Twitter accounts that had the brand new grey examine marks solely minutes earlier have been instantly with out them once more. So what occurred?

Elon Musk apparently occurred. Mere hours after his newly bought social media platform started its rollout of a brand new grey examine mark in an effort to assist make clear which high-profile accounts have been really verified, the brand new grey examine marks started disappearing from varied accounts, evidently at Musk’s behest. Simply check out this tweet conversation between web video producer Marques Brownlee and Musk:

I simply killed it

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

Within the above tweets, Brownlee quote tweets a earlier tweet of his personal wherein he described the brand new grey examine mark and the outdated blue examine mark and included a screenshot of his personal account when it nonetheless had the brand new grey examine mark. Brownlee’s quote tweet of that tweet then issued an replace, saying that his account’s new grey examine mark is gone. Musk then replies to Brownlee’s quote tweet, seemingly confirming what occurred to the grey examine marks that had disappeared so quickly after being rolled out: “I simply killed it.”

Then, in a subsequent reply Musk seems to state his reasoning for doing so:

Blue examine would be the nice leveler

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

Then Musk issued another confirmation. This time, as a standalone tweet, separate from the above dialog. This tweet appears to point that Musk will probably be taking extra of a “tweet and delete” strategy to including options to the platform — rolling them out after which probably rapidly taking them away, with little context as to why.

Please word that Twitter will do a number of dumb issues in coming months.

We are going to preserve what works & change what doesn’t.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 9, 2022

The now-removed grey examine mark may have helped (no less than a bit of) to quell current issues about impersonation and to make clear Twitter’s stance on verification, the latter of which has turn into a bit muddled for the reason that platform’s current transfer to cost customers $8 a month for blue examine badge. In spite of everything, the blue examine was initially supposed to assist customers determine if the accounts of public figures have been certainly the official accounts of these high-profile folks, manufacturers, and organizations. Understandably, charging $8 for that blue examine may confuse issues if customers can simply purchase a blue examine with out being verified by the platform, which will be the case in response to Vox.

The grey examine mark wasn’t a great repair for this difficulty, however within the absence of simply giving Twitter Blue subscribers a unique form of badge or simply strolling again the entire notion of charging for a blue examine, the grey examine mark would nonetheless have been helpful, notably for accounts belonging to information organizations and governments.