Twitter
Regarding Twitter’s announcement that they would do away with “legacy” blue checkmarks as of April 1, it doesn’t appear that many users have yet done so.
Some have, but reports indicate that the real removal of blue ticks will take some time, possibly requiring the Twitter crew to delete each one manually. Nevertheless, Twitter has found a new way to democratize the blue tick in the interim.
The wording of the pop-up that shows when you click on a checkmark in the app was changed by Twitter over the weekend, and as a result, it is no longer able to identify whether an account is paying for Twitter Blue or is a legacy-verified account.
Twitter has made it clear that an account is either verified using the current system or is a subscriber to Twitter Blue. The two have now been combined in this new language, which is wonderful for Twitter Blue customers who pay $8 per month for a measure of exclusivity and apparent recognition, but could potentially harm older verified accounts.
This wording change blurs the line right away, even if it takes Twitter weeks or months to remove the old blue ticks. The flaw in the entire process of selling verification ticks is that the value of the product that you’re selling is diminished with every subsequent sale because the more people pay for checkmarks in the app, the less differentiating it is to have one.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has stated that accounts will soon display the date of verification as an additional tool to aid users in determining their legitimacy; nevertheless, there is currently no ID verification or qualification process for Twitter Blue. A simple payment results in a blue tick.
