Twitter will delay the rollout of its Twitter Blue subscription until after Tuesday's US midterm elections. The new subscription will allow people to pay to be verified on the site.
Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, recently announced that the company would let users buy a blue-tick verification badge by subscribing to Twitter Blue – a badge previously only given to prominent accounts which Twitter had identified as authentic. Concerns were raised that this new system could be used by "bad actors" to pose as public figures and spread misinformation – particularly on the eve of major elections in the US.
In a wide-ranging Twitter thread about identification and verification on the site, Yoel Roth said: “The planned changes to Twitter Blue to make verification more widely available raise the stakes for this kind of impersonation. We’re particularly focused on the risks of impersonation of public officials in the context of the US 2022 midterm elections, and have made the decision not to launch Verification for Twitter Blue until after election day.”
