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Yesterday, we learned that the man-child who brought you the return of disgraced impeached reality show host Donald Trump and failed Adidas businessman Kanye West to Twitter wasn’t quite done trying to get attention. Because he chose Thanksgiving as the day to shit on everyone’s Corn Flakes by announcing a general amnesty for suspended accounts that kicks in next week. And now, in honor of Black Friday, Elon Musk is trotting out one of his earlier “greatest hits.” Yup, that’s right. We’re back to talking about “blue-checking”… which is now also “gold-checking” and “grey-checking.”
“Sorry for the delay; we’re tentatively launching Verified on Friday next week,” Musk wrote in response to someone attempting to be verified. “Gold check for companies, grey check for government, blue for individuals (celebrity or not), and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates. Painful but necessary.” With requests being “manually authenticated before check activates,” it will be curious to see if right-wing whackjob-leaning accounts get a faster path to being verified than those “woke folks” that Musk likes to crow about. As for that last part? “Painful” isn’t in doubt, but that “necessary” part? It’s only “necessary” if your previous plans are flailing and you’re just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. Clearly for him, something stuck.
“All verified individual humans will have same blue check, as boundary of what constitutes “notable” is otherwise too subjective. Individuals can have secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org if verified as such by that org,” Musk continued. Okay, cool…? So what about the details? Oh, those? “Longer explanation next week.” But hey, there’s still more that Musk wants you to know. At a time when he’s ready to open the floodgates for a ton of really shitty folks to return to Twitter to spread their bile, he wants to make it clear that “deliberate impersonation/deception will result in account suspension” and that “organizational affiliation, bio, and follower count [will] distinguish between people who genuinely have the exact same name.” But for me, it’s the last six words that speak volumes. Because sometimes, you can tell the difference between someone ending a message confidently and someone ending a message as if they’re crossing themselves as they convey it. When Musk ends with, “We shall see how it goes,” you can’t help but feel the need to read that as, “I don’t know if this is going to work, either, but f**k it!”
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