Twitter starts pulling blue check marks from people who haven’t paid

NEW YORK — This time it’s real.

Many of Twitter’s high-profile users are blue check This allowed him to verify his identity on the social media platform owned by Elon Musk and distinguish him from the scammers.

after a few times fake start, Twitter began fulfilling its promise Thursday to remove blue checks from accounts that aren’t paying a monthly fee. Twitter had approximately 300,000 verified users under the original Blue Check system, many of whom were journalists, athletes and celebrities. The checks, which previously meant the account was verified by her Twitter, began disappearing from these users’ profiles in the early hours of Pacific time.

Famous users who lost their blue checks on Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump.

Costs to maintain the mark range from $8 per month for individual web users, to a starting price of $1,000 per month to verify your organization, plus $50 per month per affiliate or employee account. Twitter does not verify individual accounts. This is as was the previous blue check distributed during Musk’s previous administration of the platform.

celebrity usersfrom basketball star LeBron James to writer Stephen King to Star Trek’s William Shatner, are hesitant to participate.

Mr. King, for example, said he didn’t pay.

“My Twitter account says I’m subscribed to Twitter Blue. I’m not. My Twitter account says I gave my phone number. I didn’t,” King said. tweeted Thursday. “Just because you know.”

In reply to King’s tweet, Musk said “you’re welcome Namaste” and in another tweet he said he was “personally paying some money”. I tweeted that I was just paying.

Singer Dionne Warwick tweeted that the site’s verification system is “totally messed up.”

Warwick has previously pledged not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee “may and will continue to go toward extra hot lattes.”

On Thursday, Warwick lost his blue check (actually a white checkmark on a blue background).

Users with a blue check left on Thursday saw a pop-up message saying, “Your account has been verified because you signed up for Twitter Blue and verified your phone number.” Confirming a phone number simply means confirming that the person has a phone number and has access to it. This does not confirm the person’s identity.

Celebrities and journalists weren’t the only ones who lost their blue checks Thursday. There are concerns that Twitter may lose its status as a platform for getting accurate and up-to-date information from accessible sources.

Twitter offers a gold check for “verified organizations” and a gray check for government agencies and their affiliates, though it’s not clear how the platform offers these. , was not seen in many institutional and public service accounts previously verified on Thursday.

The official Twitter account of the New York City Government, which previously had a blue check, tweeted on Thursday, “This is a genuine Twitter account representing the New York City Government. This is the only @NYCGov account run by the New York City Government.” I tweeted. trying to clear up confusion.

A newly created impersonation account with 36 followers (also without a blue check) disagreed with: This account is the only genuine Twitter account that represents and operates the New York City Government. ”

Another account impersonating Pope Francis soon followed.

As of Thursday, less than 5% of traditional verified accounts appeared to have paid to join Twitter Blue, according to an analysis by Travis Brown, a developer of Berlin-based social media tracking software.

Mr. Musk’s move has angered some high-profile users and pleases right-wing figures and Musk fans who thought Mark was unfair. It’s not an obvious money maker for the platform.

Digital intelligence platform Similarweb analyzed how many people signed up for Twitter Blue on their desktop computers and saw only 116,000 confirmed signups last month. Accounts purchased via the mobile app were not counted in this analysis.

After acquiring San Francisco-based Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to entice more people to pay for premium subscriptions to boost revenue for the struggling platform. But his move has also made the blue certification mark an unfair or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters, and others who were granted certification for free by Twitter’s former leadership. This reflects his assertion that

Twitter started tagging profiles with a blue check mark about 14 years ago. In addition to protecting celebrities from impersonation, one of the main reasons was to provide additional tools to curb misinformation from impersonating accounts. Most “legacy blue checks”, which include politicians, activists, people who suddenly appear in the news, and the accounts of lesser-known journalists in small publications around the world, are not household names.

After acquiring Twitter, one of Musk’s first product moves was to launch a service that would allow anyone willing to pay $8 a month to issue a blue check.but it is Spoofed accounts quickly flooded in, Including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, Musk’s business Tesla and SpaceX, Twitter had to temporarily suspend the service just days after it launched.

The relaunched service will cost $8 per month for web users and $11 per month for iPhone or Android app users. Subscribers should be able to see fewer ads, post longer videos, and make their tweets more prominent.