Musk-led Twitter rolls out new “Official” tags, removes them hours later

Twitter is rolling out the $7.99-per-month version of its Twitter Blue subscription, which adds a blue checkmark to your profile. But with Twitter CEO Elon Musk's move to paid checkmarks raising concerns about impersonation, Twitter also deployed a new "Official" label for notable accounts.

However, in news that probably won't surprise you, the Official label rollout is already chaotic. Some accounts—including Ars Technica's—had the Official tag briefly today then it disappeared. It's not clear whether the tags are gone for good. "I just killed it," Musk wrote today when YouTuber Marques Brownlee asked why his Official tag disappeared.

While it seems that Musk might have ended the whole Official tag system just hours after it launched, Twitter executive Esther Crawford said shortly after Musk's tweet that it isn't being killed entirely. "The official label is still going out as part of the @TwitterBlue launch—we are just focusing on government and commercial entities to begin with," she wrote. "What you saw him mention was the fact that we're not focusing on giving individuals the 'Official' label right now."