Twitter will present a checkmark "official" gray color for government accounts, media and major brands

() — Twitter said Tuesday night that to resolve ambiguity over which accounts on its platform have been identity verified, as opposed to those that simply pay $8 a month for a blue checkmark on their profiles, the company will introduce a new gray checkmark as part of an “official” label.

A screenshot posted by Esther Crawford, the company’s director of product management, showed how the new label would appear. The screenshot showed the Twitter account’s own profile, which included the standard blue check mark next to its name, as well as a gray check mark and the word “Official” below the account handle.

A visit to Twitter’s currently live profile did not show the gray check mark, suggesting that the feature has not yet been implemented.

“Not all pre-verified accounts will earn the ‘Official’ tag and the tag is not available for purchase,” Crawford tweeted. “Accounts that will receive it include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and some public figures.”

Crawford also confirmed that the upcoming option to pay for a blue checkmark will not include an identity verification requirement.

“We will continue to experiment with ways to differentiate between account types,” Crawford said.

In recent days, Twitter has received widespread criticism for its plan to change the meaning of the blue checkmark from not identifying confirmed individuals, particularly public figures, to a new meaning indicating that a user has paid for Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service.

Election security experts have warned that some are likely to pay for a blue checkmark and then change their names to impersonate government officials or other authorized sources of information.

After the feature appeared to be ready for rollout over the weekend, Twitter decided to delay the rollout until after the midterms, previously reported. Also over the weekend, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, promised that accounts caught engaging in undisclosed phishing would be permanently banned without notice, reversing earlier promises that so-called “permabans” permanent) would be extremely rare.

Musk’s announcement came after numerous celebrity accounts used his verified status to mock Musk’s pay verification scheme, modifying their accounts to resemble his own.