[dragonwriter]

> In the current existing system, famous people also have to go a verification process when they are invited or approved to be verified. Paying for a checkmark would presumably include the same verification that takes place in the current system.

It will presumably include some verification process, but the current process is relatively small volume (compared to what Musk wants for the new premium accounts with verification, which he seems to want to be the norm for active, non-trivial-reach users) and I would imagine doesn’t scale well, so he probably wants a more streamlined, scalable identity verification system like what EdX does for verified certificates.