Twitter has made the news several times ever since billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Elon Musk took over the social media company. There is a unique relationship between the Twitter CEO and the media, they can’t stay away for too long. After the introduction of Twitter Blue in 2021, Twitter had allowed users to get the verification check mark on their Twitter accounts if they were subscribed to Blue. Recently, Twitter had removed the verification marks from accounts which were not subscribed to the service by the social media goliath. Such accounts which were already verified before the addition of Twitter Blue were called legacy accounts.
After the Twitter Blue subscription was announced, the social media company had faced backlash from legacy account holders who raised a number of questions pertaining to the legitimacy of accounts on the application. As Twitter removed the verification check marks of legacy account holders a few back, a number of eminent personalities who refused to pay for the service lost their verification marks. Amid a rumor that the blue bird company CEO was paying for the Twitter Blue subscription of a few celebrities, Elon has confirmed the rumors.
Twitter Blue:
Although the paid service had multiple benefits associated with it including a reduction of as much as 50% in terms of advertisements, most users were attracted to the verified blue tick that it led to. For the first few months after its introduction the legacy account holders still had a verified check mark on their accounts. However, the company had made it very clear that they will remove the blue ticks from legacy accounts if they do not buy the Twitter Blue subscription.
There was a wide ranging response from the public on Twitter Blue. While most people thought that this was a great move by the firm which is struggling with funds, the people who had legacy accounts were not as happy. They believed that the recognition they had earned through years of hard work and commitment in their fields shouldn’t be accessible with money. Some of them also cited legitimacy concerns because what was earlier limited to a small set of users on the platform who were verified could now be bought with money. They cited the dominance of bots with verified accounts as a result of such implementation.
While some of the legacy account holders did eventually end up buying the Twitter Blue subscription before their verification mark was removed, there were others who chose not to purchase it. A number of renounced actors, politicians and comedians woke up to see their blue tick gone; some of them took the Twitter with sarcastic tweets targeted towards the social media giant. The list of such celebrities includes Amitabh Bachchan, Prakash Raj and others. Vir Das too took to Twitter with a series of tweets. In one of them he said that if Twitteratis like his content then it is the real him otherwise they can think of him as a Vir Das impersonator.
Elon’s favorite celebs:
Recently, some rumors which surfaced claimed that Twitter was not charging a few celebrities for the tick mark. The rumors were speculated when NBA star LeBron James and famous author Stephen King still had the blue tick marks on their accounts after they claimed of not having paid the monthly subscription fee. Stephen King had tweeted about the bizarre condition of his account after his other friends who did not pay up lost their verification mark.
My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t.
My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 20, 2023
A number of agencies which follow the matters pertaining to Twitter reported the incident and claimed that it was possible that the social media company had set some exceptions to the rule.
Twitter CEO also responded to Stephen King’s post with “You’re welcome, Namaste.” suggesting that it was indeed him who was responsible for Stephen’s complimentary blue tick.
Musk too clarified that he was paying up only for few celebrities in his tweet.
Just Shatner, LeBron and King
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2023
