• Twitter Blue has launched again, but this time with manual verification.
• Rumours suggesting the price would increase for iOS were accurate as the fee for subscriptions via the App Store are now $11.
• There is no indication that this is a worldwide launch.

After a failed relaunch of Twitter Blue shortly after Elon Musk’s takeover, the subscription service launches again today alongside manual verification.

Twitter Blue is now the only way for accounts to become verified. There are three different check mark colours to indicate whether an account is a government official (grey check mark), a company (gold check mark) or an individual (blue check mark whether they are a celebrity or not).

Advertising the relaunch on its official account, Twitter’s material reveals that priority in replies, mentions and search are “coming soon”. The same goes for the ability to post longer videos to Twitter and removing half of the ads.

The features you do get are the ability to edit tweets, to upload video at 1080p resolution, a reader mode and a check mark when the account is manually verified.

That last point is important as many Twitter users are rather confused as to why they have paid but see no check mark. This is because the check mark will only be assigned once a user is manually verified. There is currently no indication of how long this process will take.

One more sticking point is Twitter recouping the “Apple Tax” through customers. Subscribing to Twitter Blue through the website will cost $8 per month while subscribing on an iOS device will cost $11. Curious as to why we didn’t mention Android? Well that’s because Android users can’t pay for Twitter Blue via their mobiles. In fact, we’re not even sure Twitter Blue is supported on Android at all.

The product support page is horribly out of date and it raises one more important question – is this a global rollout?

Twitter Blue has only been available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK until now and while it has plans to expand, those plans aren’t known. With that having been said, using a VPN connecting via the UK, we were able to see a prompt for Twitter Blue but we could only purchase the subscription via iOS. Here in South Africa, we have no such offer.

As Twitter no longer has a press office and all official communications seemingly happen via Musk’s Twitter account, we aren’t sure what the situation is.

We’re concerned because while Musk wants to retire the old verification marks, without Twitter Blue in every country chaos would play out around the world much like it did in the US, only this time with more confusion. Without a verification mark any account could claim to be a government official, a brand or anybody really.

According to an interview published by Slate, Twitter’s Trust and Safety team has dropped to about 70 members. With over 250 million users that is a shockingly low number of people left to police Twitter’s halls in every language the website is accessible in.

As we mentioned, we don’t see Twitter Blue as available in South Africa yet but with no clear plan as to the rollout of this product, we just have to wait for Musk to make a decree.