What the Twitter blue, yellow and grey tick mean (2024)

Have you noticed different coloured ticks appearing on Twitter? Perhaps you’ve just heard there are changes afoot after Elon Musk took over.

The old blue ticks have been replaced with a whole new system.

Here’s everything you need to know.

What do the coloured ticks/checks mean on Twitter?

Elon Musk introduced the new colours after he took over at the company.

In atweetat the end of November Elon explained: “Gold check for companies, grey check for governments, blue for individuals (celebrities or not). Painful, but necessary.”

“Individuals can have a secondary tiny logo to show they belong to an organisation if verified as such by that organisation,” he said in another tweet.

Twitter gave some more details on Blue and Gold checks below:

Blue

Twitter says: “The blue checkmark may mean two different things: either that an account was verified under Twitter’s previous verification criteria (active, notable, and authentic), or that the account has an active subscription to Twitter’s new Twitter Blue subscription product, which was made available on iOS on Wednesday 9 November, 2022.

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.”

Gold

“The gold checkmark indicates that the account is an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business.”

When was it launched?

The new feature launched on Monday 12 December to replace the previous system.

Is Twitter Blue still happening?

Twitter is set to launch a revamped version of its pay-for-verification system, after a previous attempt was marred by imposter accounts impersonating major brands and world leaders.

Users will once again be able to purchase a subscription to Twitter Blue from Monday, receiving a blue tick and access to special features in return.

The relaunched service will cost $8 (£6.45) a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone users.

Subscribing to Twitter Blue is now available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Twitter says subscribers will eventually see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos and have their tweets featured more prominently – though none of those features will be present at launch.

The blue checkmark was originally given to companies, celebrities, government entities and journalists that Twitter had deemed authentic.

After Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44bn in October, he launched a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month.

But it was soon inundated by imposter accounts, with some impersonating Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, along with prominent politicians and companies.

Hours after the launch, verified accounts posing as Tony Blair and George W Bush appeared on the app, making reference to the Iraq war.

A blue tick account parodying former President George W Bush tweeted: “I miss killing Iraqis.” A blue-tick account parodying Tony Blair replied: “Same tbh.”

In the US, accounts pretending to be Joe Biden and gaming giant Nintendo appeared, sharing offensive material.

Within days, the ability to join Twitter Blue was removed from the platform.

Twitter says it will combat impersonation this time round by making sure that subscribers have a “verified phone number” and will have their accounts “reviewed” before a blue tick is applied.

It added: “Subscribers will be able to change their handle, display name or profile photo, but if they do they’ll temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed again.”

What else has Elon Musk changed?

Since taking over in October, Mr Musk has fired around half of Twitter’s 7,500-strong workforce, making deep cuts to its trust and safety team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and harmful content.

The remaining workforce has been asked to find up to $3m (£2.68m) a day in savings on tech infrastructure – the servers and computers that keep Twitter online under the weight of its 238 million monetisable daily users.

The 51-year-old, who described himself as a “free speech absolutist”, has also reinstated some previously suspended accounts, including that of Donald Trump, though the former US President is yet to return to the platform.