Twitter Blue will reportedly cost $19.99 and offer the 'Verified' blue checkmark soon

Shortly after finalizing his purchase of Twitter last week, Elon Musk confirmed he wants to change how page verification requests are processed. It now appears that what Musk meant by that is to include the "Verified" blue checkmark as one of the Twitter Blue perks.

While responding to a Twitter user on Sunday, Musk said, "The whole verification process is being revamped right now." The Verge reported soon after that post that Musk has instructed Twitter developers to revamp Twitter Blue, including increasing its monthly subscription price to $19.99. And one of the biggest reported changes would be the addition of the blue checkmark that appears on verified Twitter profile pages.

Twitter Blue is currently a completely optional subscription service offered for $4.99 per month in select regions. Subscribers are given early access to new features, including the platform's long-awaited edit tweet functionality. While ads are still displayed on the feed, Twitter Blue provides access to some ad-free news articles within the app.

It is unclear at this point if there are other major changes to the exclusive services and features offered via Twitter Blue to justify the steep price hike. But the report added that a Twitter Blue subscription would be essentially a requirement to acquire the verified blue checkmark -- even for pages that already have it.

The same report said that currently verified Twitter pages would lose the blue tick in 90 days if they do not subscribe to Twitter Blue, presumably once the changes are officially announced. The company, under Musk's leadership, has yet to confirm the reported changes. But the same sources claimed that Musk gave employees a strict deadline that, if not met, would cost them their jobs. The "revamped" verification process is reportedly planned to launch as soon as Nov. 7.

Twitter first announced that its verification process was in beta in June 2009 after it was sued by Tony La Russa over impersonators posing as the MLB icon using fake accounts on the platform. The purpose of the verified status on Twitter was simple at the time, which was to help users identify the real accounts of public personalities. So before it officially launched, Twitter included pages of "public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other well-known individuals at risk of impersonation" in testing the Verified Accounts feature.

It now remains to be seen if there will be other requirements, aside from paying $19.99 monthly, that Twitter users need to submit to get the Verified badge. Regardless, this would be a drastically different approach to what Twitter said in 2017 amid facing widespread backlash for its verification process. The public outcry forced the company to suspend its verification process and admitted, "Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance. We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it."

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