Twitter is to start removing its iconic blue Account verification from 1st April, the day the world will celebrate April Fools Day.
Despite the significance of the day Twitter chose, the move has been anticipated for months now. In December 2022 Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the company would remove those checks “in a few months” because “the way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical.”
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Since the announcement, people who have a legacy blue checkmark have been receiving a pop-up every time they click on the checkmark. The pop-up reads: “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”
Prior to Elon Musk’s takeover of the microblogging platform, checkmarks were used to verify accounts of individuals and groups as active authentic, and “notable” accounts of interest.
Most importantly, the verified checkmarks were free-of-cost and users were not asked to pay for them.
Earlier Twitter announced in mid-December that they were rolling out Twitter’s blue subscription model that would allow subscribers to “get access to subscriber-only features such as Edit Tweet, 1080p video uploads and reader mode.”
Now, hours after Twitter announced that a Twitter Blue subscription was available globally for $7 (approximately Rs2,250), the platform has announced its decision to roll back the coveted checkmarks.
Musk, resharing the announcement also added: “Any individual person’s Twitter account affiliated with a verified organization is automatically verified.”