People around the world can now pay for Twitter as the company has announced its Twitter Blue subscription service now available worldwide. While the plan was previously quite widely available (you could sign up for it in nearly 50 countries), the expanded availability reflects the company’s drive to make Twitter Blue an increasingly important part of the service.
However, part of that effort involves making promises it has yet to keep. The company’s announcement tweets list some of the benefits of Twitter Blue, such as a tick, the ability to write longer tweets, be prioritized in conversations, and see ads cut in half. However, the latter two have not really been rolled out yet. When you click the link to sign up for the service, it’s still listed as “Coming Soon.”
CEO and owner Elon Musk promises a priority ranking since November, calling the feature “essential to beat spam/scams.” However, despite (or perhaps because of) Musk’s push to have employees work in “hardcore” conditions, it didn’t materialize. The same goes for some of his other promises – in February he announced that Twitter had begun sharing ad revenue with Blue subscribers, something that hadn’t happened more than a month later, and promised to open source the company’s algorithm to make up the week of February 27. That didn’t happen, however he promises now that it will take place on March 31.
Company also announced on Thursday that it has started accepting applications from government and organizational accounts that want a gray check mark. The documentation says eligible accounts include heads of state, members of congresses or parliaments, institutional accounts at headquarters level, regional level, and country level. (For example the National Park Service has a gray diamond, just like the US president.)
The gray checks – along with the gold checks for businesses – are intended to clear up the confusion caused by the meaning of the blue check, ranging from “a person or organization who has verified Twitter” to “a person or organization who Twitter has verified that someone who pays for Blue.” Musk has promised to get rid of the “old blue checks” that stated verification and said they are “really corrupt”, but so far that hasn’t happened either. Now if you click on someone with a Blue Check who doesn’t pay for Blue, you’ll see the message “This is an out-of-date verified account. It may or may not be remarkable.”
Update March 23, 4:58 PM ET: Updated with information about applications with gray check marks.