UPDATE: Just kidding? After YouTuber Marques Brownlee noted on Twitter that his Official label had disappeared after just a few hours, Elon Musk responded: "I just killed it," adding: "Blue check will be the great leveler." PCMag's Twitter account, which had an Official tag this morning, also saw it disappear.
Original Story:
Twitter is introducing a new "Official" label and white checkmark, but the majority of accounts will never qualify to use it.
Esther Crawford, director of product management at Twitter, took to Twitter late yesterday to introduce the new label, which will not be available to purchase. Instead, the Official label will act as a new form of ID verification and be reserved for "government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and some public figures."
Crawford reminded everyone that the new version of Twitter Blue doesn't include ID verification and is instead "an opt-in, paid subscription that offers a blue checkmark and access to select features." She also said there will be further experiments to differentiate the two types of accounts, which suggests getting an Official label could expand to include more types of accounts in the future.
For now, it means we're going to go through a transition period where some accounts will lose the blue checkmark because they decide not to pay for it, but gain the Official label because they fall into one of the stated account categories. Others will choose to pay for Twitter Blue (after the US midterm elections) and gain both the checkmark and the label.