Elon Musk made good on his promise to remove the coveted blue check mark from ‘legacy’ verified Twitter accounts this time. Twitter on Thursday rolled out its new policy around its verified badge according to which Twitter users will now have to pay for the Twitter Blue, which costs $8 a month via the web and $11 a month through in-app payment on iOS and Android. Thousands of Twitter accounts lost their verified status as a part of Musk’s plan to push for paid verification through a monthly subscription plan.
Among the top tweeps who don’t have blue ticks anymore are: Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Alia Bhatt; and global celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Robert Downey Jr., Kim Kardashian, and Blake Lively; politicians CM Yogi Adityanath, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi.
Sports celebs like Cristiano Ronaldo, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma also lost it.
Meanwhile, there are several celebrities, business leaders, and politicians who have retained their Twitter blue ticks, either by paying for a subscription or through the benefit of being affiliated with an organization.
Account of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos- remains to hold to the coveted badge because “it’s an affiliate of Amazon on Twitter.” On the other hand, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Apple CEO Tim Cook have paid for subscriptions and verified their phone numbers so their accounts are still verified.
The blue tick mark introduced in 2009 was a way of protecting well-known individuals from impersonation and tackling false information. The first official announcement on winding down the legacy verified program and removing the legacy verified checkmarks came in March.
Musk launched Twitter Blue with the check-mark badge as one of the premium perks within two weeks of the company’s takeover last year.