Twitter Begins Removing Blue Checks From Unpaid Users

File: Twitter to remove traditional blue checkmarks in April

I’m serious this time.

Many of Twitter’s high-profile users are losing the blue check mark that helps verify their identity and distinguish them from scammers on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

After several failed attempts, Twitter on Thursday began fulfilling its promise to remove blue checks from accounts that were not paying a monthly fee. Twitter had approximately 300,000 verified users under the original Blue Check system, many of whom were journalists, athletes and celebrities. The checks started disappearing from these users’ profiles early in the morning Pacific time.

Famous users who lost their blue checks on Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis and former President Donald Trump.

Costs to maintain the mark range from $8 per month for individual web users, to a starting price of $1,000 per month to verify your organization, plus $50 per month per affiliate or employee account. Twitter has not reviewed individual accounts to verify who they are, as was the case with previous blue checks distributed during the platform’s pre-mask administration.

Celebrity users, from basketball star LeBron James to Star Trek’s William Shatner, have been hesitant to participate, but on Thursday James’ blue check showed the account paid for verification. Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander has promised to leave the platform if Musk takes up the blue check.

Dionne Warwick tweeted on Tuesday, “The way Twitter works, whoever I am right now. The verification system is a total mess.” She has previously pledged not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying her monthly fee “could (and will) go to my extra hot latte.”

On Thursday, Warwick lost his blue check.

After acquiring Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to get more people to pay for premium subscriptions to boost revenue for the struggling platform. But his move has also made the blue certification mark an unfair or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters, and others who were granted certification for free by Twitter’s former leadership. This reflects his assertion that

Twitter started tagging profiles with a blue check mark about 14 years ago. In addition to protecting celebrities from impersonation, one of the main reasons was to provide additional tools to curb misinformation from impersonating accounts. Most “legacy blue checks”, which include politicians, activists, people who suddenly appear in the news, and the accounts of lesser-known journalists in small publications around the world, are not household names.

After acquiring Twitter, one of Musk’s first product moves was to launch a service that would allow anyone willing to pay $8 a month to issue a blue check. But an immediate influx of spoofed accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, forced Twitter to temporarily shut down the service a few days after its launch. I had to.

The relaunched service will cost $8 per month for web users and $11 per month for iPhone or Android app users. Subscribers should be able to see fewer ads, post longer videos, and make their tweets more prominent.

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AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.