Elon Musk indefinitely postpones relaunch of Twitter Blue

Twitter owner Elon Musk said that the company’s relaunch of its paid verification service touted ‘Twitter Blue’ will be held off until the platform can ensure that it has effectively put an end to fake accounts.  

Musk said in a tweet that the firm was “holding off” on the relaunch of the service until there is “high confidence of stopping impersonation.”   

After taking over Twitter in a $44 billion acquisition, Musk had attempted to overhaul Twitter’s blue check verification system by introducing the $8 blue tick verification plan.  

Earlier this month, Musk tweeted that the service would relaunch by November 29 to offer a more 'solid' experience, and would include more checks to prevent impersonators. 

He also criticised Twitter’s earlier blue check verification system, and compared it to a “medieval feudal system” stating that he has made Twitter Blue a priority in an attempt to diversify the company’s revenue beyond advertising, which he said has seen a “massive drop” since he took over.

On a separate tweet, Musk claimed that Twitter has added 1.6 million daily active users in the past week. He claimed this is an all-time-high for the micro-blogging platform. The daily active users showed a spike at the end of October, when Musk took over the platform. It went up to 259.4 million from the daily active user based of around 250 million at the beginning of October. 

Musk also said that Twitter will soon be competing with YouTube in terms of video streaming service, hinting that Twitter might soon offer good video experience with 'higher compensation for creators.' 

On Monday, Musk said in an hour-long all-hands meeting with employees that the company is done with layoffs and actively recruiting for roles in engineering and sales and that employees are encouraged to make referrals. The meeting that took place at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters for the first time after Musk declared an “extremely hardcore” work regime, which led to roughly 1,000 resignations last week.