Twitter Blue relaunched with actual verification process, higher price for Apple users • businessroundups.org

Twitter is officially bringing back the Twitter Blue subscription on Monday, starting in five countries before quickly expanding to others, according to Esther Crawford, director of product management at Twitter. Web logins cost $8 per month and iOS logins cost $11 per month for “access to subscriber-only features, including the blue check mark,” per a tweet of the company account.

Android users can make online purchases and use their subscription on their phone, Crawford said. The higher iOS signup fees may be a move by Twitter to offset the cost of Apple’s 30% commission on in-app purchased subscriptions, or simply to deter users from subscribing through the Apple Store, following a Twitter storm from an angry Elon Musk about allegations that Apple was cutting advertising on the platform.

Twitter had previously tried to democratize the prestige of the blue check — once used for verifying trustworthy and noteworthy accounts — by making it available to anyone willing to spend $8 a month verifying be damned. The result was a slew of users buying a tick to impersonate other accounts and generally get into mischief. (See: Fake drug company Eli Lilly tweets insulin is now free and fake Tesla tweets, “Our cars don’t respect school zone speed limits. Fuck those kids.”)

Crawford tweeted over the weekend Twitter has now added a review step before putting a blue check mark on an account to deter impersonation, which it says violates Twitter rules.

With the relaunch of Twitter’s subscription offering, the social media platform will be color-coding timelines by introducing gold checkmarks for businesses and soon gray checkmarks for government and “multilateral accounts,” whatever those may be.

‘Companies that previously had relationships with Twitter will receive gold checks on Monday’ tweeted Crawford. “We will soon be opening this up to more companies through a new process.”

Because Twitter is still testing this feature, the company warned that subscribers who change their username, display name or profile picture will temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed.

Subscribers can edit their tweets, upload 1080p videos, and have access to read mode in addition to their blue ticks. said. They will also “shoot” their tweets to the top of replies, mentions and searches and will be spammed with 50% less ads.