Twitter has so far not followed through on an announcement that it would remove blue ticks from legacy verified users, meaning those users continue to display them alongside paying subscribers.
Last month, Twitter’s billionaire owner, Elon Musk, announced that from 1 April, legacy verified users would have their blue ticks removed from the service unless they paid the US$8 a month subscription fee for Twitter Blue. For organisations, the fee is US$1,000 a month.
As April fool’s day came and passed, the blue ticks remained, despite much anticipation. As of Sunday, Musk appears to have only removed one blue tick: that for the account of the New York Times.
This appears to have been done in retaliation for the news outlet announcing it would not pay for the service, according to a reply from Musk.
Oh ok, we’ll take it off then
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2023
The New York Times also reportedly told reporters that it would not reimburse their costs for subscribing to Twitter Blue, except where it may be needed for their reporting.
The Times had reported that Twitter would keep the verification badge for the 10,000 most followed organisations, which would include the Times with nearly 55m followers.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the removal of legacy verification badges may take a long time because the process may require a lot of manual elements.
On Sunday, Twitter also removed the information that differentiated between legacy verified accounts and Twitter Blue subscribers, with users told when clicking the tick that the account is “verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.”
Users that had subscribed to the service had sometimes found themselves ridiculed on the platform for paying for the account, and Twitter was reportedly also mulling an option for subscribers to hide their verified badges.
Musk on Sunday said Twitter would also add a verified date to a user’s account, but this would only apply to subscribers.
Last week Musk backed down on a plan to only promote verified users through the company’s “For You” timeline that is algorithmically curated, stating other users would be visible as well in that feed.
A leaked memo from Musk last week also revealed Twitter is worth less than half what the billionaire paid for it six months ago, down to less than US$20bn.
Twitter no longer has a communications department.
