Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, announced on Friday that the platform would be introducing different colored badges to distinguish between accounts.
"We apologize for the delay; we hope to launch Verified on Friday next week," he tweeted.
"Gold checks for businesses, grey checks for governments, blue checks for individuals (celebrities or not), and all verified accounts will be manually authenticated before the check is activated."
Musk also stated in another tweet that all verified individual accounts will have the same blue check, but some will eventually be able to display a "secondary tiny logo showing they belong to an org(anisation) if verified as such by that org(anisation)".
Since acquiring the social media giant last month, Elon Musk's proposal for users to pay to be "verified" and receive a blue badge on their profiles has caused consternation.
Musk proposed a $8 monthly subscription fee to allow users to obtain the blue check, which was previously free but reserved for organizations and public figures to prevent impersonation and misinformation.
The first rollout of Musk’s subscription plan in early November quickly went south, with many accounts paying for the blue check and then impersonating world leaders, celebrities or companies.
Responding to the backlash, Musk initially postponed the launch date to November 29, before delaying it once more. It now appears the feature will launch on December 2.
Musk has said he wants to charge users for subscriptions to the social media platform to diversify its income stream. Twitter currently depends on advertising for 90 per cent of its revenue.
Several major brands have withdrawn from advertising on the platform since Musk bought it, fearing that his promised relaxation of content moderation could open their companies up to being associated with objectionable content.
According to the Media, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have announced that they are suspending or “have apparently suspended” their spending on the social network.