As reported yesterday, Twitter was going to introduce a new ‘official’ badge for high profile accounts. This is because the old ‘verified’ blue checkmark now represents a user who is paying $8 a month for Twitter Blue. This means the old blue ‘verified’ checkmark is nothing more then a status symbol and nothing to do with being a verified account. As of today, Twitter has introduced a grey checkmark below the blue checkmark for the high profile accounts. However, not all high profile accounts currently have these, so this change may still be in the process of being fully deployed.

A day after announcing that it’d denote high-profile accounts in a way distinctive from the blue checkmark now available to all Twitter Blue subscribers, Twitter has begun to roll out new badges that identify particular categories of official accounts, including government accounts, major media outlets and some public figures. The move is an attempt to safeguard against information spreading and impersonation on the platform as Twitter grapples with the fallout of expanding eligibility for its blue checkmark, which was previously reserved for vetted, ID-verified users.

The new badges — a grey checkmark beneath the old blue verification checkmark — designate accounts as “Official,” in line with what app researcher Nima Owji revealed less than a week ago in Twitter’s code. Accounts including TechCrunch’s and several government officials’, among them U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar’s (D-MN) and Mitt Romney’s (R-UT), show the grey check as of this morning. But from a cursory search, there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason to how the new badges are being applied. For example, The Wall Street Journal’s account initially didn’t have a badge; The Information’s still doesn’t. Nor does Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s.

via TechCrunch