Many verified Twitter users may soon lose their blue tick. CEO Elon Musk recently said that the legacy verification checkmarks were awarded in a “corrupt” manner and will be removed soon. He didn’t precisely tell when those blue ticks will start disappearing, though.
“Legacy blue checks will be removed soon. Those are the ones that are truly corrupt,” Musk tweeted a few days back. And his comments don’t come as a surprise. The Twitter Chief has always suggested that the company was unfair in awarding the blue tick. It required users to meet various criteria to get that coveted social media status symbol.
Soon after Musk took over Twitter, he started offering the checkmark as part of the Blue subscription. Anyone can now pay the company to have the blue tick, as long as they verify their identity with a phone number. For prominent celebrities and businesses, the social network introduced a golden checkmark and various other labels. Organizations even get unique badges to link their multiple accounts, brands, and individuals who work for them.
However, legacy blue ticks that Twitter originally gave to accounts that passed its criteria have existed all this while. As such, things have mixed up a little. While some blue ticks denote a Twitter Blue subscription, others are a symbol of a verified account. The company will remove the latter. “In a few months, we will remove all legacy blue checks. The way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical,” Musk tweeted a couple of months back. His latest comments suggest we are close to that.
Twitter to remove legacy blue ticks amid user backlash
Twitter may have introduced new badges and checkmarks for prominent celebrities and businesses, but not every account that was previously verified by the company will get those. Unsurprisingly, those users are not happy about it. They argue that they earned the blue tick, and they should not lose it just because Twitter has started selling the checkmark. Perhaps those users want the company to give them a replacement badge if the blue tick is reserved for Twitter Blue users.
However, Twitter doesn’t seem to be doing that. It is only awarding new badges to globally renowned people and companies, leaving many users with no other choice but to get a Twitter Blue subscription or lose the coveted social media status symbol. It will be interesting to see how people respond when Twitter starts taking away the legacy checkmark. That day doesn’t seem to be too far away. We will keep you posted.
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