In keeping with TechCrunch, Twitter is at the moment testing the brand new ID verification factor, which might be tied to the Twitter Blue sign-up course of.

As you may see in these photos (shared by Watchful.ai), Twitter’s seeking to combine ID verification into its Twitter Blue choices.

As per TechCrunch:

“Code-level insights reveal a course of for sending in a photograph of the person’s ID, each back and front, together with a selfie picture to confirm their Twitter account. The function is listed alongside others solely accessible to Twitter Blue subscribers.”

ID verification was flagged as a key factor in Twitter’s revised Twitter Blue sign-up course of again in December, after the preliminary launch of Twitter’s buyable checkmark system led to a raft of impersonation points.

However Twitter didn’t truly implement ID verification inside its new course of, opting as a substitute to hasten the rollout, with a purpose to maximize income consumption from the scheme. However now, Twitter seems to be seeking to reintegrate verification into the method, which might assist to make sure that all customers who signal as much as Twitter Blue, and get a checkmark within the app, are actual folks, with full tackle data and call information, which might go a great distance in direction of addressing abuse of the system by bots and scammers.

Which is among the key goals of the method. As Twitter chief Elon Musk notes:

“Verified accounts are 1000X tougher to sport by bot & troll armies.”

That’s true, however there does additionally must be a degree of checking concerned within the course of, as ‘cost verification’, as Twitter calls it, will solely go as far as a deterrent within the sign-up course of.

Certainly, already many unsavory varieties are signing up for verified Twitter accounts by this system, together with members of the Taliban and Mexican drug cartels. The blue checkmark provides these accounts an additional degree of legitimacy, a minimum of on some degree, and it will appear that extra stringent ID checking would weed out a few of these potential points – to not point out that bot scammers are additionally nonetheless in a position to purchase checkmark accounts, and use them for ailing objective.

The view is that paying $8 makes this price prohibitive, however that will depend on how a lot the scammers make out of their grift. If the typical return is bigger than $8 – which proof suggests it’s – then it’s probably not the barrier that Twitter appears to assume.

However then once more, possibly that’s why it’s now seeking to implement ID verification, to shut this loophole, and proceed to up its defenses in opposition to such, whereas additionally facilitating an extra income stream.

Twitter Blue stays a key factor of Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter 2.0’ reformation push, with Musk hoping to make use of subscription income to scale back the app’s reliance on advert consumption, and thus additionally allow it to function with out having to think about advertiser issues in its selections.

That might assist Musk transfer extra in direction of his ‘free speech’ ethos for the app, as diminished reliance on advert {dollars} would imply Twitter might enable extra varieties of speech, with out impacting general income – however up to now, Twitter Blue sign-ups have been properly down on what Musk and Co. have to make it a key income consideration.

Primarily based on the latest evaluation, Twitter Blue now has round 450k sign-ups, after this system was expanded to extra areas over the previous few weeks. At 450k customers paying $8 per thirty days, that’s an additional $3.6 million per thirty days coming into Twitter’s coffers, or $10.8 million per quarter. Which is a big quantity – however Twitter’s promoting consumption in Q2 2022, the final time it publicly reported its numbers, was $1.18 billion. That signifies that Twitter Blue would must be bringing in round $590 million per quarter to satisfy Musk’s beforehand acknowledged objective of it contributing 50% of the corporate’s general income.

So it’s a manner off being what Elon had hoped – although even at reasonable ranges, it’s bringing in cash when Twitter desperately wants it, with, reportedly, 70 of the platform’s prime 100 advertisers not resuming full spend on the app since Musk took over.

As such, Twitter Blue will probably stay a spotlight, however the chance of it changing into a big contributor to Twitter’s general consumption appears low.

However on the similar time, decrease ranges of consumption would make one thing like ID verification simpler to facilitate. Perhaps, that’s the silver lining right here, and with improved verification, that might make Twitter Blue a more practical device for combating bots, even when it’s not an enormous cash maker, in relative phrases.