Elon Musk has continued to cause confusion on Twitter as the social media platform has failed to remove legacy blue ticks – something it said was going to happen on April 1st.
Profiles with the old checkmarks, which were originally intended to help people know an account is verified and real, can now not be told apart from profiles which have paid for one.
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The confusing verification saga has been raging on since billionaire Musk took over as CEO and self-proclaimed ‘chief twit’.
It culminated last month when Musk said all blue ticks would be removed unless users paid a monthly fee for its Twitter Blue subscription service.
It seemed like thousands of the social media platform’s most high-profile users were to lose their checkmarks at the beginning of this month – but the proposed culling date came and went.
So far, the only blue tick removed from the social media platform is the New York Times, after the news organisation publicly said they wouldn’t pay for verification – which is priced at $1,000 a month for organisations.
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By GlobalDataIn a recent statement, the news organisation wrote: “We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for checkmark status for our institutional Twitter accounts.
“We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes.”
This led to a swift removal of their blue tick from the social media platform.
It is now harder than ever to tell between those who earned a checkmark through the old legacy system and those that are paying for Twitter Blue.
Some legacy accounts now read: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.”
“Getting rid of the verified checkmarks has been a divisive issue to say the least,” Michelle Stark, sales and marketing director at internet provider Fasthosts, told Verdict.
“Musk’s supporters view it as a genius way to keep Twitter alive, while detractors air concerns around misinformation and Twitter becoming an echo chamber.”
GlobalData is the parent company of Verdict and its sister publications.
