This week, big names from the world of esports, show business and politics shared a downgrade of sorts when their blue tick on Twitter was removed.
Singer Beyoncé, writer J.K. Rowling, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo and even the Pope are among those whose social media brand should be stripped of authenticity as the blue tick changed from Thursday.
Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has begun an overhaul of the platform to increase profits.
And as part of this overhaul, the so-called old blue checks will be removed from verified accounts in order to operate the new Twitter Blue services.
We’ve looked at exactly what’s going on with ticks and Twitter.
What did the blue tick on Twitter mean?
The original tick on a Twitter account’s profile was retained when the service deemed the account authentic, visible, and active.
It should let people know that the public interest account is genuine and validated by the platform.
Anyone could apply on Twitter to be featured in any of the following categories: government, news organizations, headliners and journalists, corporations, brands and organizations, entertainment, sports and games, activists and organizers or content creators and influencers.
Parody, newsfeed, comments, pets, fictional characters, and unofficial fan accounts could not receive a blue check.
It emerged in 2009 after Kanye West criticized the company and former American baseball player Tony La Russa sued over unauthorized accounts run by impersonators.
In response, Twitter launched its “Verified Accounts” program, of which there were about 300,000 people.
Why were the ticks removed?
Entrepreneur Elon Musk bought Twitter for £38.1bn in October 2022 and immediately began putting his stamp on the company.
He fired almost half of the staff and tweeted: “Regarding the Twitter outage, unfortunately the company has no other choice when the company is losing over $4 million a day.”
And he urged employees to implement a paid verification system instead of the old blue verification.
Requiring users to pay for confirmation was part of Musk’s new plan to make Twitter profitable and less financially dependent on advertising revenue.
What is Twitter Blue?
Twitter Blue is a new subscription service that replaces the old blue tick.
Account holders wishing to sign up now will be required to pay a monthly subscription (£11 per month in the UK) to gain additional features and meet certain eligibility criteria in order to earn a blue tick.
To register, the Twitter account must be older than 90 days, and the subscriber must verify their phone number during the registration process.
Once registered, account holders get a number of additional features, including increased visibility of their tweets, the ability to upload and post videos up to 60 minutes long, and set a timer to untweet.
A blue check mark appears on subscriber accounts after the account has been verified by the service.
Twitter also offers gold and gray checkmarks for accounts.
A golden checkmark indicates that the owner is an official Twitter business account Verified Organizations.
And a gray check mark means that the owner represents a government or a multilateral organization or an official of both.
Source: I News
I am Moises Cosgrove and I work for a news website as an author. I specialize in the market section, writing stories about the latest developments in the world of finance and economics. My articles are read by people from all walks of life, from investors to analysts, to everyday citizens looking for insight into how news will affect their finances.