According to a report by The Verge, Twitter's new owner and CEO, Elon Musk, has once again delayed the launch of the Twitter Blue badge until the company can find a way to stop impersonators and bots.
Elon musk is delaying the launch of his $8 subscription service, here's why
The service was scheduled for a November 29 return, but Musk announced it has been delayed further.
"Holding off the relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation," Musk said in a tweet.
The decision to push back the new feature comes one day after the platform launched an updated version of its iOS app that promises to give users who pay a monthly subscription fee a blue checkmark on their profiles, a feature Elon Musk has proposed for fighting spam on the platform.
According to the app's latest update, users will now have to pay $7.99 per month for Twitter Blue verification, just like celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow. For decades, the checkmark has served to verify the authenticity of government officials, prominent figures, and journalists
The goal of Musk is to make Twitter a reliable information source. However, until a payment system is designed to significantly increase the cost of bots and trolls, every social media site will still be vulnerable to their use. He thus announced that the business would soon be allowing organisations to identify which other Twitter accounts are truly linked to them in an effort to further weed out impersonators.
Previously, the company temporarily removed the subscription model after bogus accounts received the blue tick verification symbol. On November 29, it was scheduled to return to the $8 plan.
The delay comes amid a public backlash against charging for verification. Celebrities have posed as Musk on the platform and exposed flaws in the "Blue Check" system in a demonstration of defiance.
In the past few months Musk has introduced multiple changes to Twitter in an attempt to see what works and what doesn't. Twitter Blue is no exception, although it promises more revenue for a company that is currently in a crisis.