- Elon Musk says Twitter Blue's relaunch is on hold until it can deal with impersonation issues.
- He said Twitter would need to safeguard against impersonation with "high confidence."
The launch of Twitter's reworked verification system is on hold until the platform has "high confidence" that it can stop impersonation, new CEO Elon Musk said.
"Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation," Musk tweeted late on Monday.
The new system will also likely use different color checks to distinguish individuals from organizations, he said.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022
Musk's announcement comes after the social media platform halted its relaunch of Twitter Blue — which gives users a blue tick if they pay $8 a month — due to widespread impersonation issues.
The billionaire's latest update also supersedes his earlier announcement that Twitter Blue would return on November 29.
Musk's haphazard launch of Twitter's paid verification began on November 5. That day, several celebrities such as actor Valerie Bertinelli and comedian Kathy Griffin began impersonating Musk to make a point about his new system.
On November 6, Musk tweeted that Twitter would permanently suspend impersonators and parody accounts with "no warning."
On November 8, the platform said it would use a blue check to denote paid verification users and gray checks to mark "official" verified accounts of news outlets, celebrities, politicians, and other figures and organizations. Two days later, Musk announced that he had killed the feature.
Scammers and pranksters began to flood Twitter, impersonating figures such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Lebron James. Parody accounts for brands emerged too, with one user pretending to be pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and announcing that "insulin is free now," causing the firm's stock to plummet.
Twitter suspended its verification relaunch on November 11, and started focusing on solving impersonation issues, per Platformer's Zoe Schiffer, who cited an internal note.
Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.