More big changes have come to Twitter with legacy verified accounts losing their blue ticks.
The blue tick was previously a way to recognise verified accounts such as organisations and prominent figures to prevent spam accounts.
However, blue ticks are now reserved for subscribers of Twitter Blue following Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media site.
Those who subscribe to Twitter Blue for £9.60 a month receive the coveted blue tick, as well as features such as editing tweets, text formatting, the ability to write longer tweets, and more.
One of the changes that Twitter has seen since Musk’s takeover has been the introduction of yellow and grey ticks – just to add to the blue tick headache – but what exactly do they mean?
Here’s what you need to know.
What is a yellow tick?
The yellow tick, or the gold checkmark, shows that an account is an official business account through Twitter Verified Organizations (TVO) scheme.
According to the Twitter website: ‘Twitter Verified Organizations enables organizations of all types–businesses, non-profits, and government institutions–to sign up and manage their verification and to affiliate and verify any related account.’
Once subscribed, an organisation can link any number of affiliated individuals, businesses, or brands to their account.
When they do so, the affiliated account will receive a small badge of their parent company’s profile picture next to their blue or gold tick to show they are linked.
A TVO subscription is $1,000 per month (£807) and $50 per month (£40) for each additional affiliate.
What is a grey tick?
Also part of the TVO, a grey tick on a Twitter account shows that it belongs to a government or multilateral organisation or office.
Eligible government organisations at a national level include:
- Main executive office accounts
- Agency accounts overseeing specific areas of policy
- Main embassy and consulate accounts
- Parliamentary or equivalent institutional and committee accounts. Eligible government organizations at the state and local level include: Main executive office accounts and main agency accounts overseeing crisis response, public safety, law enforcement, and regulatory issues.
Eligible government individuals may include:
- Heads of state (presidents, monarchs and prime ministers)
- Deputy heads of state (vice presidents, deputy prime ministers)
- National-level cabinet members or equivalent
- The main official spokesperson for the executive branch or equivalent
- Individual members of all chambers of the supranational or national congress, parliament, or equivalent
Eligible multilateral organizations may include the main headquarters-level, regional-level, and country-level institutional accounts.
Multilateral individuals include the head and deputy-head or equivalent of the multilateral organization.
Eligible accounts may apply here, and they can check if they meat the criteria for a grey tick under Twitter’s Verified Organizations feature.
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