Elon Musk has set a deadline — maybe — for purging legacy blue check-marks from Twitter accounts that aren’t paying him for verification.
On Tuesday, the multibillionaire owner of Twitter tweeted, “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20.” Musk is notorious for his love of memes and jokes, including those involving 420 (i.e., the unofficial day/time for toking up). It’s not clear whether April 20, 2023, is actually the cutoff date for when legacy accounts will have their status revoked (unless they’ve signed up for a Twitter Blue subscription) or if it’s just a joke, à la Musk’s move to temporarily swap out the Twitter logo with the Shiba Inu “doge” mascot of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2023
Twitter previously announced that starting April 1, it would begin removing the blue check-mark badges from legacy verified accounts — those which the company had previously deemed to be notable and/or authentic — unless users have signed up for Twitter Blue, which starts at $8 per month. That doesn’t appear to have begun in any widespread way at this point.
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 check-mark and who isn’t.
Some celebs have said they’re not going to pay for Twitter verification. LeBron James, the NBA star and entertainment producer, had tweeted on March 31 that his blue check-mark likely would be disappearing because he wouldn’t pay for verification: “Welp guess my blue ✔️ will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5. 🤷🏾♂️.” As of this writing, @KingJames remains verified.
Musk is making the switch to paid verification in order to generate much-needed revenue for Twitter — although it is not obvious that many people will actually fork over the dough for Twitter Blue. Last fall, after the author Stephen King rejected the idea of paying for a blue check-mark (“Fuck that,” King tweeted), Musk responded, “We need to pay the bills somehow!”
But Musk also has claimed that granting Twitter verified status to any paying Jane or Joe Six-Pack is “more about treating everyone equally,” as he told actor William Shatner, who had complained about Twitter’s plan to rescind legacy blue check-marksunless users pay for them. Said Musk, “There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities imo.”He’s characterized Twitter’s previous system of verification as “corrupt and nonsensical.”
Musk also had announced that starting April 15, only posts from Twitter Blue verified accounts will show up in Twitter’s For You recommendations. The tech mogul later said he “forgot” to add that any Twitter users you follow directly will also be in the For You feed.
Meanwhile, Twitter has launched a program for businesses and organizations to charge $1,000 per month for verification badges (gold for brands, companies and nonprofits; gray for governments), but the company reportedly will waive that fee for its 500 largest advertising clients and the 10,000 most-followed brands, companies and organizations that have been previously verified (a group that includes PvNew‘s Twitter account).
On April 2, Twitter removed the verification badge for the New York Times. That after an exchange on Twitter, in which Musk, replying to someone noting that the publication said it wouldn’t pay for verification, said, “Oh ok, we’ll take it off then.” Later Musk tweeted, “NY Times is being incredible hypocritical here, as they are super aggressive about forcing everyone to paytheirsubscription.”
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 impostor or parody accounts. The company didn’t previously charge for verification.
Twitter Blue in the U.S. costs $8 per month via the web and $11 per month through in-app payment on iOS and Android. In addition to the blue check-mark, subscribers have access to other exclusive features including the ability to edit tweets within a 30-minute window, longer tweets of up to 4,000 characters and prioritized rankings in conversations.
Prior to Musk’s change allowing anyone to get a blue check-mark, Twitter had more than 420,000 verified accounts. Shortly after Musk closed the $44 billion Twitter deal, the company relaunched Twitter Blue with the check-mark badge as one of the premium perks. But within two days, it had suspended signups when a deluge of users set up fake and parody accounts that appeared to be “verified.” The company relaunched Twitter Blue the following month with new measures designed to prevent impersonators.
