In a surprise move, billionaire and Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that Twitter will be purging legacy blue checkmarks from accounts verified under the company’s old regime. Musk provided the information about the target date on his official Twitter account, stating that the “final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20.”
This means that if you have a legacy verified account on Twitter with a blue mark, you will have to pay now to keep the checkmark. The only accounts that will keep their blue checkmarks are those subscribed to Twitter Blue, which is priced differently for every region and based on how you sign up.
Previously, the microblogging company had announced that it would begin removing the blue checkmark badges from legacy verified accounts on April 1. However, on April 2, Twitter changed the language in the description of verified users to read, “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account” — which means you can’t tell who is paying for a blue checkmark and who isn’t.
Some celebrities, like LeBron James and Stephen King, have refused to pay for the blue tick verification, but Musk defended the move, saying “We need to pay the bills somehow!” Twitter CEO Elon Musk is making the switch to paid verification in order to generate much-needed revenue for Twitter. The social media platform has also launched a program for businesses and organizations to charge USD 1,000 per month for verification badges.
Twitter first introduced verified accounts in 2009 to help users identify that celebrities, politicians, companies and brands, news organizations, and other accounts of public interest were genuine and not impostors or parody accounts. The company didn’t previously charge for verification, but now it seems that the blue checkmark will come at a cost.
