Twitter finally takes away all legacy 'Blue Ticks' from its users today (April 20), as relatively new CEO Elon Musk pushes a brand-new paid for subscription service.
Legacy 'Blue Ticks' were originally only given to notable social media users like celebrities, politicians and journalists - who had passed strict verification processes online. This allowed the platform to verify a notable user's identity and prevent copycats and impersonators.
But under Musk's newly-found ownership, the tick has become an indicator that a social media user is subscribed to the brand-new Twitter Blue project - which sets users back £9.60 per month or £100.80 annually for desktop at the time of writing.
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Mobile users on Android and iOS meanwhile are faced with higher charges of £11 per month or £114.99 per year for the service.
While many are buying the service to finally obtain a 'vanity' checkmark, others will make the most of the exclusive additional content which it provides - including the ability to create longer Tweets, edit posted content and upload videos in 1080p.
Shortly after his acquisition of the platform in October 2022, Musk began detailing the new pay-to-play service - with legacy checkmarks at the top of his list of things to rid. And earlier this month, Elon announced the final date for removing the old-school authentication marking.
Taking to his own Twitter page, he wrote: "Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20."
Expanding on this with an exclusive interview with BBC Technology Correspondent, James Clayton, Musk added: "My prediction is that any social media company that does not insist on paid verification will be simply overwhelmed by advanced AI bots."
He added: "We're going to treat everyone equally. So what we're not going to do is say that there's some anointed class of journalists who are the special ones, who get to tell everyone what they should think. It should be up to the people what they think."
At the time of writing, a number of old legacy accounts still have their Blue Ticks, although it has become hard to distinguish who pay for theirs and who rightfully had one prior - with Musk also obfuscating this earlier in April. Legacy ticks used to read: "This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category."
However, on the mobile app, they now read: "This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account."
A number of social media users have complained of the change, with rock and roll star and actor Jack Black even going as far to admitting he's 'a little embarrassed by the blue check'.
Certain media organisations on the other hand have already had their legacy checkmarks removed prior to tomorrow's wipe-out. The New York Times was one of the first notable companies to have their legacy ticks removed by Musk and his team, after the paper confirmed that they would not be paying for Twitter Blue.
In a statement, they wrote: "We aren't planning to pay the monthly fee for checkmark status for our institutional Twitter accounts. We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes."
In a Tweet, Muck clapped back, writing: "NY Times is being incredible hypocritical here, as they are super aggressive about forcing everyone to pay *their* subscription."
How to keep your 'Blue Tick' on Twitter -
Unfortunately, unless you're willing to fork out the subscription fee for Twitter Blue, you will reportedly wave goodbye to your legacy checkmark tomorrow (April 20).
Features of Twitter Blue -
Here are a number of exclusive features that Twitter Blue subscribers can access:
- Edit Tweets up to 5 times within 30 minutes
- See half the amount of advertisements on timelines
- Tweet up to 10,000 characters
- Improved text formatting with bold and italics
- Access to bookmark folders
- Custom app icons
- NFT Profile Pictures
- Different themes
- Custom navigation bar for up to six locations
- Spaces tab for audio and podcasts
- Top articles shortcut
- Reader which can change text size
- Undo Tweet capabilities
- Prioritized rankings in conversations and search
- Longer video uploads
- SMS two-factor authentication
What do you think of Twitter Blue? Let us know in the comments.
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