Twitter on Tuesday rolled out the grey checks for verified government and multilateral accounts and square affiliation badges for handles of several businesses on the platform.

“Starting today, you’ll start seeing additional icons that provide context for accounts on Twitter. In addition to blue and gold checks, you’ll see grey checks for government and multilateral accounts and square affiliation badges for select businesses,” Twitter Support tweeted.

Here’s what the new verification signs imply and who can avail them as per Twitter rules

Blue checkmark: The blue checkmark may mean two different things: either that an account was verified under Twitter’s previous verification criteria (active, notable, and authentic), or that the account has an active subscription to Twitter’s new Twitter Blue subscription product and meets certain requirements.

Accounts that receive the blue checkmark as part of a Twitter Blue subscription will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable, and authentic criteria that were used in the previous process.

Gold checkmark and square profile picture: The gold check mark indicates that the account is an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business.

Grey checkmark: The grey checkmark indicates that an account represents a government institution or official, or a multilateral organisation. Specifically, eligible government institutions include national and local crisis response, public safety, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies, embassies, and other major national-level agencies.

Eligible elected or appointed officials include heads of state, foreign official spokespeople, top diplomatic leaders, and cabinet members (national level). Eligible multilateral organisations include institutional accounts, top officials, and official spokespeople.

Official labels: The Official profile label is applied to commercial companies including business partners, major brands, media outlets, and publishers.

State-affiliated media labels and government labels: Labels on state-affiliated profiles provide additional context about accounts that are controlled by certain state-affiliated media entities and individuals closely associated with those entities. Government labels apply to accounts heavily engaged in geopolitics and diplomacy from the main countries where Twitter operates.

These labels also contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and whether it is operated by a government representative or a state-affiliated media entity. Additionally, a small icon of a flag is included, to signal the account’s status as a government account or as a podium for state-affiliated media.

Automated account labels: These provide transparency by helping identify if an account is a bot or not. When an account displays the "automated" account label, one knows the account is generating automated content not produced by a human. Automated account labels — currently in testing — appear on account profiles under profile names and handles.

Professional category labels: These are selected by people on Twitter when they convert to a professional account. Twitter does not control the selection of these labels, and users may change their professional category at any time.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)