Report: Musk Plans to Charge for Twitter Verification

New Twitter owner Elon Musk is planning to change the platform's verification process, though it's not clear what form the changes to the "blue tick" system will take. "The whole verification process is being revamped right now," Musk tweeted Sunday in response to spaceflight photographer John Kraus, who said he had been denied verification four or five times despite having more than 138,000 followers. During the acquisition process, Musk repeatedly complained about the verification process, which gives users a blue tick to signal their account is authentic, the BBC reports. The Verge, citing internal correspondence it has seen and sources "familiar with the matter," reports that Musk intends to charge users $20 a month as part of an overhaul of the Twitter Blue subscription service.

Verification at Twitter is currently free. The optional Twitter Blue service, introduced in June, costs $4.99 a month for features including an edit button. The service currently has nothing to do with verification, but the Verge's sources say Twitter users will be given 90 days to subscribe to the service at the new prices—and if they don't sign up, they will lose their blue tick. The sources say employees working on the project have also been given a deadline: If it isn't launched by Nov. 7, they could risk losing their jobs. (Twitter workers are also worried about an earlier deadline.)