After a brief period of speculation, Elon Musk is firing the bullet: the Twitter Blue subscription is returning. The option will soon give subscribers a handful of unique features, as well as a blue checkmark next to their profile name. But that’s not the only thing the infamous tech entrepreneur is going to change about social media.
Earlier, Elon Musk’s Twitter launched that revamped Blue subscription. However, the company quickly pulled the plug on that again when users started impersonating other companies or individuals. This time, the social medium hopes to avoid those problems by introducing a round of controls.
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If you want a blue checkmark next to your name, you have to register a phone number. Your account is also put under a magnifying glass, but it’s unclear exactly what Twitter checks. And should you change anything about your profile, your checkmark disappears – until you are viewed again.
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we’re relaunching @TwitterBlue on Monday – subscribe on web for $8/month or on iOS for $11/month to get access to subscriber-only features, including the blue checkmark 
– Twitter (@Twitter) December 10, 2022
To differentiate between business and personal accounts (of businesses and individuals), Elon Musk is introducing gold checkmarks for businesses. Government and multilateral accounts will get gray checkmarks. The gold version is available now and the gray one will be available later this month.
So what do you get with that subscription?
For now, the blue checkmark is the main feature of the subscription. But in the future, you will also be able to post longer videos (and in higher quality) and edit tweets. In addition, you’ll get early access to new features, your tweets will be prioritized in the search engine and you’ll see fewer ads.
Finally, Elon Musk let it be known that he wants to increase the character limit of tweets to four thousand characters. That’s a big step up: now you can use up to 280 characters. We don’t know when Twitter will make this change; but if it comes, we can’t really call it a microblogging website anymore.