This time it’s for real.
A lot of Twitter’s high-profile users are losing the blue checks that helped confirm their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.
After several false starts, Twitter began making good on its promise Thursday to remove the blue checks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee to maintain them. Twitter had about 300,000 verified users under the unique blue-check system — lots of them journalists, athletes and public figures. The checks — which used to mean the account was verified by Twitter to be who it says it’s — began disappearing from these users’ profiles late morning Pacific Time.
High-profile users who lost their blue checks Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump.
The prices of keeping the marks range from $8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to confirm a company, plus $50 monthly for every affiliate or worker account. Twitter doesn’t confirm the person accounts, as was the case with the previous blue check doled out in the course of the platform’s pre-Musk administration.
Celebrity users, from basketball star LeBron James to creator Stephen King and Star Trek’s William Shatner, have balked at joining — although on Thursday, all three had blue checks indicating that the account paid for verification. It was not immediately clear whether that was the case or if Twitter made an exception for them. The Verge reported James didn’t pay for his Twitter checkmark, but Musk gave it to him anyway.
Oprah Winfrey was considered one of the high-profile users who lost their blue checks.REUTERS
King, for one, said he hadn’t paid.
“My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t,” King tweeted Thursday. “Just so you realize.”
Singer Dionne Warwick tweeted earlier within the week that the location’s verification system “is an absolute mess.”
“The best way Twitter goes anyone may very well be me now,” Warwick said. She had earlier vowed to not pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee “could (and can) be going toward my extra hot lattes.”
On Thursday, Warwick lost her blue check (which is definitely a white check mark in a blue background).
For users who still had a blue check Thursday, a popup message indicated that the account “is verified because they’re subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.” Verifying a phone number simply signifies that the person has a phone number they usually verified that they’ve access to it — it doesn’t confirm the person’s identity.
Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts appear to have paid to hitch Twitter Blue as of Thursday, in keeping with an evaluation by Travis Brown, a Berlin-based developer of software for tracking social media.
Musk has been attempting to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. MEGA
Pope Francis also didn’t pay the monthly fee.AP
Musk’s move has riled up some high-profile users and pleased some right-wing figures and Musk fans who thought the marks were unfair. Nevertheless it just isn’t an obvious money-maker for the social media platform that has long relied on promoting for many of its revenue.
Digital intelligence platform Similarweb analyzed how many individuals signed up for Twitter Blue on their desktop computers and only detected 116,000 confirmed sign-ups last month, which at $8 or $11 monthly doesn’t represent a significant revenue stream. The evaluation didn’t count accounts bought via mobile apps.
After buying Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been attempting to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have grow to be an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others granted verification totally free by Twitter’s previous leadership.
Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts appear to have paid to hitch Twitter Blue as of Thursday, in keeping with an evaluation .AP
Twitter began tagging profiles with a blue check mark starting about 14 years ago. Together with shielding celebrities from impersonators, considered one of the most important reasons was to offer an additional tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts impersonating people. Most “legacy blue checks,” including the accounts of politicians, activists and folks who suddenly find themselves within the news, in addition to little-known journalists at small publications across the globe, should not household names.
One in every of Musk’s first product moves after taking up Twitter was to launch a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. Nevertheless it was quickly inundated by impostor accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter needed to temporarily suspend the service days after its launch.
The relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for users of its iPhone or Android apps. Subscribers are alleged to see fewer ads, find a way to post longer videos and have their tweets featured more prominently.