This time it’s for real. Many of Twitter’s high-profile users are losing the blue checks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.
After several false starts, Twitter began making good on its promise on Thursday to remove the blue checks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee to keep them. The legacy blue checkmarks were previously granted to journalists, public officials, and celebrities for free as a measure against impersonation and spam on the social media platform.Twitter had about 300,000 verified users under the original blue-check system. But it has began disappearing from these users’ profiles late morning Pacific Time.
High-profile users who lost their blue checks on Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump.
In India, top sports stars, including the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli and double Olympic medallist shuttler PV Sindhu, have lost the blue checkmarks that helped verify their identity on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The costs of keeping the marks range from USD 8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of USD 1,000 monthly to verify an organisation, plus USD 50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account.
Celebrity users, from basketball star LeBron James to author Stephen King and Star Trek’s William Shatner, have balked at joining — although on Thursday, all three had blue checks indicating that the account paid for verification.
King, for one, said he hadn’t paid.
“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,” King tweeted Thursday. “Just so you know.”
In a reply to King’s tweet, Musk said “You’re welcome namaste” and in another tweet he said he’s “paying for a few personally”.
Singer Dionne Warwick tweeted earlier in the week that the site’s verification system “is an absolute mess.”
“The way Twitter is going anyone could be me now,” Warwick said. She had earlier vowed not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee “could (and will) be going toward my extra hot lattes.”
