A new Twitter alternative is trying to lure users about to lose their old checkmark

With Elon Musk set up with thousands of users who were verified under the company’s previous leadership, a Twitter alternative hopes to attract some of those “legacy” verification marks to its platform. an invite-only service run by two former Twitter employees, says it will let users transfer their “legacy” Twitter verification to its site

T2 is part of Twitter that grew out of the Musk acquisition. The platform is smaller than some more established rivals, such as Mastodon, but is intended to recreate the “public square” associated with pre-Musk Twitter. In fact, founder Gabor Cselle has been that it intends to create “a fairly plain copy of Twitter with a few simplifications” rather than a completely new experience.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that the site now known as T2 (the company eventually plans to take on a new name) is a “Get Verified” feature that will build on Twitter’s legacy verification program. With it, users can fill out a short form to go through an expedited verification process for T2. The feature will also work for those on the T2 waitlist.

For now, users only have a couple of days to take advantage of the program, as legacy verifications will be gone from Twitter on April 1. But the company has a plan to offer verification through other means once Twitter’s legacy controls go away. (T2’s form-based verification won’t work for those who paid the new Twitter Blue-enabled check.)

Along with the new verification features, T2 also announces a couple more milestones. The company has hired a former Discord exec as its new CTO and is rolling out a much-needed redesign that will look familiar to Twitter users.

As with all new Twitter rivals, T2 has a long way to go before it reaches the size of the platform it’s trying to emulate. But, as Mastodon founding CEO Eugen Rochko has said, Twitter’s most influential users, like those with legacy verification, are incredibly valuable to any new platform. If T2 can hook more of those users, it could make it easier to recreate the public square they’re looking for.