In a list of ‘dumb things’, Twitter rolls back 'Official' labels on accounts hours after launch

Following a chaotic takeover by billionaire Elon Musk, micro-blogging giant Twitter has been going through a whirlwind of changes. Twitter's latest update, where it introduced an "Official" label for select verified accounts, was one such change. However, just hours after being rolled out, Twitter on Thursday announced that it will not be putting the "Official" label on the accounts anymore.

Twitter's decision to roll out the “Official” label was to provide a second verification label to limit confusion between legitimate accounts and those that pay for their blue ticks. Twitter began adding grey labels to prominent accounts Wednesday, including brands like Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple, to indicate that they are authentic, The Washington Post reported. A few hours later, the labels started disappearing.

When American Youtuber and tech reviewer Marques Brownlee - who has over 5 million followers, tweeted screenshots confirming that the label had disappeared, Elon Musk replied, "I just killed it."

Justifying the constant changes that the platform is undergoing, Twitter top boss Musk tweeted, "Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months. We will keep what works and change what doesn't."

Twitter’s current verification system has been in place since 2009 and was created to ensure high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they say they are. There are about 423,000 verified accounts on Twitter currently. Many of those belong to celebrities, businesses and politicians. However, a large chunk of verified accounts are believed to be of individual journalists.

Experts have expressed their concerns to the news agencies that making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee could lead to impersonations and the spreading of misinformation and scams.

With inputs from news agencies