Twitter relaunching subscriber service after debacle

NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter is once again attempting to launch its premium service, a month after a previous attempt failed.

The social media platform said it would let users buy subscriptions to Twitter Blue to get a blue check mark and access special features starting Monday.

The company owned by billionaire Elon Musk has also started granting a new gold-colored check mark to businesses on the platform. The gold label began appearing Monday on the account profiles for Coca-Cola, Nike, Google and dozens of other big corporations.

“The gold checkmark indicates that the account is an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business,” the company says on a support web page.

Twitter’s blue check mark was originally given to companies, celebrities, government entities and journalists verified by the platform. After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, he launched a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. But it was inundated by imposter accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter suspended the service days after its launch.

The relaunched service will cost $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone and iPad users. San Francisco-based Twitter says subscribers will see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos and have their tweets featured more prominently. Twitter’s website doesn’t say if business accounts must pay extra for the gold label or if it is granted automatically.