Twitter To Remove “Legacy” Blue Checkmarks On 4/1

Ars Technica reports:

Four and a half months after the chaotic rollout of paid checkmarks, Elon Musk’s Twitter is following through on a plan to remove verification from individual accounts that don’t pay $8 per month for a Twitter Blue subscription. “Starting April 1, we’ll be winding down our legacy Verification program and accounts that were verified under the previous criteria (active, notable, and authentic) will not retain a blue checkmark unless they are subscribed to Twitter Blue,” a Twitter FAQ says.

Read the full article.

If you’re so inclined, there are browser extensions that show which current blue checks are being paid for.

I still have no idea what the selling point is meant to be here. Pay us money to get a badge that says you’ve paid us money? https://t.co/Vh6gJraWDj

— Robbie Collin (@robbiereviews) March 24, 2023

Twitter granted me a blue check in 2020 based on the reliability of my content. Why would I pay for it now that it instead means I’ll be among many unreliable accounts so long as they pay?

In other words, eat a bag of dicks. 🖕🏻 https://t.co/hELc7w2yFK

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) March 24, 2023

This will cause “Blue” subscriptions to fall and Elon will run around demanding answers then fire the first person who explains it to him. https://t.co/UfvDGBhVPA

— Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) March 24, 2023

can spoil how this is gonna go for you: everyone will lose their legacy check, it’ll be chaos for a week or two, then musk will bring legacy checks back but insist everyone has to reapply and he’ll take a personal interest in individual applications based on grudges https://t.co/aFJUq77ymT

— Nathan Bernhardt (@jonbernhardt) March 24, 2023

this is like paying $8 a month to get the word “LOSER” stamped on your forehead https://t.co/iZY26MyLt9

— Eddy Burback (@eddyburback) March 24, 2023

Last time they tried this someone pretended to be Eli Lilly and tanked their stock price by pretending insulin was free https://t.co/sKc26Km8YW

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 23, 2023