The start of Elon Musk’s tenure as owner of Twitter has not been without its struggles and chaos. And so far, the chaos Twitter currently finds itself in shows no signs of letting up anytime soon.
So it seems fitting that the latest news on the Twitter front is that signups for the microblogging platform’s $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription have reportedly been suspended. On Friday, Forbes reported that new signups for Twitter’s newly revamped Blue subscription have apparently been disabled, having “verified that users have not been able to sign up to the service for more than an hour,” and also citing that the option to sign up for Blue on the iOS app had disappeared as further proof of the suspension. The Verge also noted that some users may still see the option to subscribe, only to then be met with an error message. One of the editors at Digital Trends said the option to sign up for the service is just missing from his iOS app’s menu, noted that it had been like that “since at least 8 p.m. PT last night,” and shared the following screenshot:
As of this writing, there doesn’t seem to be any official announcement of Twitter Blue’s suspension of its signups published by Twitter or tweeted out by Musk.
The updated Twitter Blue subscription featured an increase in its monthly price to $8 and included new features. And most notable among those new subscription features is a blue check profile badge, which, though identical to its predecessor, the blue check verification badge, is actually not an indicator that the account it’s affixed to has actually been verified. Instead, the Twitter Blue check mark is merely an indicator that the account holder has purchased a Twitter Blue subscription. And that’s because, according to Twitter’s own Help Center guide, accounts that get a checkmark badge as part of their Blue subscription will not be reviewed under the previous guidelines for account verification on Twitter:
“Accounts that receive the blue checkmark as part of a Twitter Blue subscription will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable and authentic criteria that was used in the previous process. ”
But when the new Twitter Blue launched two days ago, this lack of a verification process for newly minted Blue subscription blue checks, only seemed to add to — you guessed it — the chaos around an already embattled Twitter. Soon after launch, impersonations of verified brands and other accounts seemed to be everywhere with one memorable instance being an impersonation of the official Twitter account of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company, in which the impostor account declared that “insulin is free now.” That viral tweet then prompted the official Eli Lilly and Company Twitter account to tweet the following apology and clarification:
We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad.
— Eli Lilly and Company (@LillyPad) November 10, 2022
And it what appears to be further confirmation of the suspension, the managing editor of Platformer Zoë Schiffer, posted a series of tweets in which she shared new details about Twitter’s suspension of Twitter Blue’s signups:
NEW: Twitter has suspended the launch of Twitter Blue and is actively trying to stop people from subscribing "to help address impersonation issues," per an internal note. 1/
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 11, 2022
Subsequent tweets from Schiffer also referred to an announcement posted on Slack that seemed to clarify certain aspects of the suspension and an apparent update on the status of those gray check mark “Official” badges:
The announcement was posted on Slack: "An update on what we did tonight: hid the entry point to Twitter Blue, added the 'official' label for ONLY advertisers. Note: here is at least one way for users to sign up for Blue. Legacy Blue users can go to subscriptions and upgrade" 2/
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 11, 2022
Twitter has also disabled Blue from being purchased on Apple iOS. 4/4
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 11, 2022
It has only been a little over two weeks since Musk took over Twitter, and the main timeline is in shambles over impersonations and lack of clarity on verification brought on by an ill-advised attempt to generate revenue, signups for Twitter Blue are apparently suspended, and users are joining other platforms like Mastodon in significant numbers.
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