Twitter wants organizations to verify their employees’ Twitter accounts themselves, and it wants them to pay a lot of money to be able to do it.
That, in a nutshell, is what Twitter is offering through a new feature called Verified Organizations, launched globally on Friday.
“Verified Organizations is a new way for organizations and their affiliates to distinguish themselves on Twitter. Rather than relying on Twitter to be the sole arbiter of truth for which accounts should be verified, vetted organizations that sign up for Verified Organizations are in full control of vetting and verifying accounts they’re affiliated with,” the company said through its Twitter Verified account.
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Businesses, nonprofits, and organizations of all kind are invited to apply to access Verified Organizations here, and they need to be vetted themselves (by Twitter) before they can start handing out those “verified” badges to affiliated accounts. They’ll get a gold checkmark and a square avatar if they’re a business or non-profit; government or multilateral organizations will get a grey checkmark and a circular avatar. Additional benefits include premium support and all the features that come with Twitter Blue, such as the ability to edit tweets and post longer tweets.
It all sounds nice until you consider the costs, which aren’t mentioned in Twitter’s post or the sign up page, but are instead explained in a Help Center post.
“A Twitter Verified Organizations subscription is $1,000/month (plus any applicable tax) and $50/month (plus any applicable tax) for each additional affiliate in the U.S. Prices may vary by region and are subject to change,” says the post. Prices per region are laid out here, and the costs get a lot higher depending on where the organization is based; for example, the cost of base subscription in Italy is €1,159 ($1,261), with an additional cost of €61 ($66) per month per affiliate.
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Commenting on the launch, Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted that it’s “important to establish whether someone actually belongs to an organization or not so as to avoid impersonation.”
While that may be important for some organizations, it’ll be interesting to see how many will choose to cough up the non-trivial cost of Verified Organizations’ fee, especially if they’re non-profits.
The Verified Organizations feature comes a day ahead Twitter’s planned removal of all blue checkmarks for individuals and businesses who haven’t signed up for Twitter Blue, which costs $8 per month. Besides losing their checkmarks, individuals and businesses that don’t pay won’t show up on Twitter’s “For You” page, and won’t be allowed to vote in Twitter polls.
