Twitter has said goodbye to its ‘legacy’ blue ticks following Elon Musk‘s controversial decision to switch up the platform’s verification system.
Earlier in the month, Musk had tweeted that “Final date for removing legacy blue checks is April 20.”
1 April was the initial date to kickstart the removal of ‘legacy’ ticks, but many remained after this date giving rise to confusion.
Ten days later, Musk then announced that the ‘final date’ for removing these ticks would be 20 April 20.
In evening of 20 April, it was observed that Twitter removed their legacy blue tick from verified accounts.
The development has affected several individuals including journalists as Twitter insists on a $8 monthly payment to subscribe to its ‘Twitter Blue’ if account holders must retain their verification badge, or for those who want to get the blue tick newly.
Numerous checkmarks disappeared from Twitter accounts for the users who were reluctant to pay $8 a month for the traditional blue badge.
‘Legacy’ blue ticks were initially given to verified accounts belonging to people of public interest including celebrities, politicians and journalists.
But following Musk’s takeover, only those subscribed to Twitter Blue can keep a blue tick, while businesses must now pay for a gold tick.
This decision came as part of Musk’s efforts to get rid of the so-called “lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark.”
Some of the biggest accounts losing their ticks include footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, cricketer Virat Kohli and former US president Donald Trump, as well as the official Twitter page for the Pope.
British comedian and presenter Richard Osman quote-tweeted the official post from Twitter Verified about the removal of the legacy verified checkmarks after losing his, writing: “Farewell blue tick, old friend. Don’t forget, always set your feed to ‘Following’ rather than ‘For You’.
“Then you’ll keep seeing the people you actually follow, and not people who’ve paid for attention.”
Many other users losing their ticks mourned the occasion, tweeting “my blue tick has passed away” and “RIP to my blue tick”.
To add to the confusion, some legacy accounts seemed to retain their ticks if linked to a verified organization, including Barack Obama’s personal page.
Twitter Verified Organizations enables bodies of “all types”, including businesses, non-profit groups and government institutions, to sign up and manage their verification and to affiliate and verify any related account.
But it costs a base price of £950 a month.
One of the most famous profiles with a blue tick because it is “subscribed to Twitter Blue’ is Taylor Swift’s, which has 92.5 million followers.
