Following the failure to remove legacy blue check marks on April 1, the Twitter CEO has today announced a new date.
“Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20.” Elon Musk said in a tweet.
Twitter had previously announced to start the stripping away of legacy check marks on April 1. However, since then only a few accounts lost their verification badges including The New York Times after the publication publicly said it wasn’t planning to pay for verification.
Just last week, the social website’s verified account (@verified) unfollowed all the approximately 420,000 legacy profiles that the account previously followed after the acquisition of their verification blue ticks. The account also changed its bio to “Individuals can get a blue checkmark with @TwitterBlue and Organizations can sign up for Verified Organizations here: https://T.co/VerifiedOrgs”.
Any currently verified account that wishes to keep its badges will have to subscribe to the company’s paid verification service, Twitter Blue. Organizations seeking verification badges must pay a monthly fee of $1,000 (approx. UGX3.7 million) and $50 for each additional affiliate sub-account while individual accounts are required to pay $8 (approx. UGX30,000) through the web or $11 (approx. UGX41,000) in-app.
While introducing the revamped Twitter Blue, Musk claimed the legacy checkmarks were given out in a corrupt way. “In a few months, we will remove all legacy blue checks. The way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical,” he tweeted.
The billionaire claims that selling the verification badge to anyone who is willing to pay is “more about treating everyone equally,”
While responding to actor William Shantner who tweeted at him asking “What’s this about blue checks going away unless we pay Twitter?” Musk said, “It’s more about treating everyone equally. There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities imo.”
Twitter Blue is expected to generate more revenue for the company however, according to data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the program has reportedly made only $11M in mobile subscriptions.
