Alright people, your brain is going to get injured. The official Gray verification badges were backpedaling just hours after they were rolled out. The free alternative to the blue verified badges caused a lot of backlash from users who said it was redundant and confusing. The gray badges fiasco might be the most stupid product effort so far because of mass layoffs, cryptic messaging, personal vendettas, reverse firings, and amateur leadership. For a second, let's get back up. The official gray badge was announced by Esther Crawford on Tuesday evening as a free verification method for government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, and major media outlets. The company's new CEO had a bright idea to charge users $8 per month to retain their coveted blue checkmark. Some public figures and government officials didn't want to pay the world's richest man. To avoid incentivizing a flood of fake accounts and misinformation on the platform, policy executives scrambled to create an alternative. They rolled it out. The New York Times, The White House, and even the official account of the company appeared with the gray badges. The badges only added more confusion since they appeared in addition to the blue verified badges, leading many to wonder what the new checkmark was supposed to mean. When viewed on a mobile dark mode, blue check marked accounts without the official gray badges look grayish/white. There are two accounts with the blue verification badges that could be mistaken for the gray official badges.
After the double badges appeared, they started to disappear. The accounts of prominent government and brand accounts reverted back to the way they looked yesterday after the official badges were removed. Musk commented on the confusion on his social media accounts.
Musk said that there will be a lot of dumb things happening on the social network. We will change what doesn't work.
In an event with advertisers, Musk commented on the debacle.
The problem with the Official check mark is that it's just another way of creating a two-class system and not addressing the core problem. Many entities have blue check marks. We will be very vigorous in our efforts to eliminate deception.
The official badges launch was announced by Crawford, who told users to get used to it quickly. In this case, the product was broken even faster.
There aren't any sacred cows in product at this time. Crawford made a statement. Many will fail, but many will succeed.
Okay, so the official Gray badges are no longer valid? It's wrong.
After advising its users to not cry over its mistakes, Crafword doubled down on the gray badges and said it would roll out with a focus on government and commercial entities. The official White House account didn't have the official badges at the time of writing. It shouldn't be forgotten that at least a half dozen other government accounts did the same.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
