Twitter Blue signups disappear a day after fakes and mayhem

Twitter users are reporting that the option to sign up for the company’s new $7.99 subscription service, Twitter Blue, has disappeared from the platform’s iOS app just days after the service launched.

You could previously subscribe to Twitter Blue from the sidebar in the iOS app (the service has yet to launch for Android users), but users this morning reported that the option has disappeared. For those for whom the link is still available, trying to sign up only returns an error message. “Thank you for your interest!” it reads. “Twitter Blue will be available in your country in the future. Please check back later.”

It’s not clear why users aren’t able to sign up for Twitter Blue. Twitter could be intentionally pausing access to the service while it deals with the chaos its launch has caused (countless users have been buying verification in order to impersonate brands and celebrities). Or, the system could have unintentionally collapsed.

Since Elon Musk’s mass-firing of Twitter’s work force earlier this week, many people — including current employees — have predicted that the service is in increasing danger of breakdown, as small errors pile-up un-addressed and the company’s remaining staff are pushed to their limit by stress, overwork, and a mandate to return to the office in person.

The launch itself of Twitter Blue has been incredibly chaotic, with Twitter trying to compensate for the confusing surge in fakes with the launch of another verification badge — a gray tick marking accounts as “official.” The company launched this feature, removed it, then launched it again, all in the space of a few days. In this context, the fact that Twitter Blue signups have disappeared from the company’s iOS app is merely par for the course — most things happening to Twitter right now are out of the blue.