The company "Twitter" recently decided to stop the monthly subscription service "Twitter Blue", after the chaos that occurred due to the misuse of the blue verification mark that subscribers obtained for a small amount of money.
Twitter Blue, which is available for a monthly subscription of $7.99, promised users additional features besides the blue verification badge, such as halving the proportion of ads, editing tweets, and the ability to post longer videos. But none of these features have been launched yet.
During the short period in which its paid service was available, the company was satisfied with enabling subscribers to obtain the blue authentication mark.
After obtaining that mark, many were surprised by something that Twitter had not announced before, which is that the company distinguished between the one who obtained the mark because he paid a sum for it, and who is a prominent account.
Although it is difficult at first glance to distinguish, because the mark appears the same in all verified accounts, clicking on the mark, whether on desktop or mobile devices, reveals the reason behind the authentication.
Twitter writes "This account is verified as a Twitter Blue subscriber" for accounts that have paid for the blue tick. You write the phrase "This account has been verified, because it is known in the government, news, entertainment, or other specific category" alongside the accounts that were previously documented.
This step by Twitter is welcome to distinguish between verified accounts, but it may not be enough, as it is not expected that everyone will click on the tag to find out the reason behind the verification.
Because of this, it seems that the company has decided once again to bring back the additional documentation "Official", having only made it available for one day and then removed it a few days ago.
It is also noteworthy that Twitter decided to prevent newly registered users on the platform from obtaining the blue verification mark, and said that any account created as of November 9 will not be able to subscribe to the Twitter Blue service at the present time.
In turn, developers Will Cigar and Walter Lim launched an extension for web browsers showing the reason for obtaining the certification mark. The tool bears the name: Eight Dollars, in reference to the price paid to obtain the mark.
Currently, the tool is available for Chrome browser from Google, Firefox browser from Mozilla Corporation, and there is a promise from developers to launch it for Edge browser from Microsoft, and Safari browser from Apple soon.
The developers explained on GitHub how to download the waiting tool to be available through the Chrome web store, and on the Firefox browser, it can be downloaded directly from the store.
After activating the tool from the extensions section on Chrome, the tool will change the verification tag in Twitter from the usual form to the tag with a caption next to it in a special frame.
For verified accounts, the tool mentions "Verified", along with the name. For accounts that have received the mark by subscribing to Twitter Blue, the phrase “Paid” will appear in blue with a dollar symbol instead of the “True” sign.
It should be noted that the tool does not work when Arabic is the display language for Twitter, but it works as it should if English is the display language.