Twitter Reactivates Free Blue Checkmarks for Accounts with millions of followers

The pandemonium continues at Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter 2.0’ experiment. This time, it results from the platform’s latest tweaks for verifying profiles as Twitter looks to boost its subscription revenue intake.

 

So, take a look at the quick recap here:-

 

Late last week, Elon followed through on his long-standing promise to remove all the legacy checkmarks in the app. It means that the only blue ticks displayed in the app are only for those paying for the Twitter Blue subscribed accounts.

 

According to Musk, the previous verification program was corrupt, with Twitter’s past team allocating checkmarks based on favoritism. Musk says that they sometimes sell them due to questionable staff and processes.

 

As a result, and to combat bots, Musk announced the pending removal of legacy checkmarks early this month and then enacted the removal on Thursday last week.

 

The update triggered a fiery backlash from various celebrities, whom Twitter eagerly hoped would pay $8 monthly to keep their blue tick alive.

 

They were not interested. Many high-profile users publicly refused to pay, with some even suggesting that they bring value to the app, not the other way around.

 

That kind of defiance only sparked a broader push against the change, with some subscribers even found trying to get rid of their checkmarks due to negative association.

 

According to analysis, around 19k of the 407k legacy verified profiles have thus far signed on to Twitter Blue, with fewer than 100 signing up after the legacy checkmark removal process.

 

It was not the result that Musk and his core group expected, and the momentum started growing behind a new #BlocktheBlue movement.

The movement calls on users to block all paying blue tick profiles on sight, and the Twitter team urgently needed to respond.

 

Thus, to dilute the negative sentiment around its latest Twitter Blue push, all the previously verified accounts started to get their checkmarks back, despite not paying for it.

 

The reinstatements initially targeted all the high-profile users who had been critical of Twitter Blue, potentially giving the impression that they had paid up.

 

But as the day went by, more and more legacy verified profiles, including the profiles of deceased celebrities, had their verification markers re-appear.

 

Finally, most accounts with over a million followers got their blue tick back despite not signing up for Twitter Blue. In some cases, some of the profiles were not having it previously.

 

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