Twitter owner, Elon Musk, said the company will remove all legacy blue checkmarks in a few months. This came as Twitter relaunched its subscription-based Twitter Blue, which offers the blue tick and other special features to paying customers. The move means that all verified accounts before Elon Musk took over the company will lose their verification badges and will be required to pay for Twitter Blue before they can get verified again.
The $8-per-month subscription ($11 for iPhone users) will also give the subscribers the advantage to encounter fewer ads while using Twitter.
Corrupt verification: While analysts believe Musk is pushing the paid subscription to recoup the $44 billion he spent on acquiring Twitter, the billionaire said he was sanitizing the platform through the subscription package. According to him, past account verifications on the platform were corrupt.
- “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.
Higher subscription coming: Meanwhile, Musk has disclosed that the company will be becoming up with a higher package from next year, which will require subscribers who want to pay more. Responding to a tweeter user who complained that he was still seeing some ads after paying for the Blue subscription, Musk said:
- “Basic Blue will have half the number of ads. We will offer a higher tier with no ads next year.”
Aside from seeing fewer ads (50%) than non-verified users, Twitter Blue subscribers also get the Edit Tweet feature, 1080p video uploads, reader mode, and a blue checkmark. For official accounts, Twitter is replacing the “official” label with a gold checkmark for businesses, and a grey checkmark for government and multilateral accounts. Twitter said subscribers will also be able to change their handle, display name, or profile photo, but if they do they will temporarily lose the blue checkmark until their account is reviewed again.
