Twitter Begins Purging Legacy Checkmarks

Twitter promised it would take away the blue badge of verification from non-paying accounts on April 20. The Elon Musk-owned platform has made good on its claim and began removing the blue tick from legacy verified accounts. Journalists, celebrities, and bunch of individuals across different domains who got verified in the pre-Musk era due to fame or "notability" no longer have blue verified badges, just as Musk had promised because he didn't like the "lords and peasants" verification system. He swapped it in favor of a subscription system.

The social media platform now requires users to pay for Twitter Blue subscription, which starts at $8 per month and also comes with a few other benefits like the ability to edit and post longer tweets. Twitter also has a separate verification program for businesses, which costs $1,000 per month and awards a gold checkmark and square avatar for it. An additional $50/month is charged for each affiliated account belonging to employees of that company. The grey checkmark is reserved for government accounts or "multilateral organizations."

Musk previously claimed that the legacy checkmarks would start vanishing come April. But the mercurial CEO was seemingly waiting to make a marijuana joke with the revised date of 4/20. It could entirely be a coincidence, based on what Musk recently told a court, after his $420 per share joke about taking Tesla private landed him in deep legal trouble.

Twitter's new policy of selling its verified badge, which was before a sign of trust and a symbol of valid information, has received widespread criticism. Soon after it was introduced, multiple bad actors purchased the Twitter Blue subscription to get the blue tick and raised hell by impersonating another individual or brand. The likes of Eli Lilly lost billions after one such distasteful stunt. Musk course corrected and announced that identity verification would be mandatory for Twitter Blue

My Twitter account says I've subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven't.
My Twitter account says I've given a phone number. I haven't.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 20, 2023

However, it appears that Twitter did leave the door open for some leniency. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company has "offered some organizations a special deal to be verified at no cost." However, not many people are a fan of paying a fee to keep the "vanity" badge, which they say has now lost its true meaning. Media outlets, journalists, as well as celebrities, have made their disdain evident.

Twitter, on the other hand, has hedged its hopes of a financial revival on subscriptions. However, it appears that the company hasn't tasted much success with those plans. Sensor Tower data suggests Twitter only made around $11 million in three months since its relaunch, according to TechCrunch. Those are not particularly hopeful numbers, especially for a company that was purchased for $44 billion and has lost over half its value in less than a year.