Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, just announced that all historical blue checks will be erased from April 20. Previously, Musk said that users will begin losing their legacy verification badges on April 1. Only those who have subscribed to the Twitter Blue subscription will get the blue checkmark. Twitter has already removed the blue checkmark from the New York Times account.
On April 11, Musk tweeted, “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20”
Earlier this month, the Twitter Verified account unfollowed everyone on Twitter, hinting at the removal of blue checkmarks on the platform. Until now, the Twitter Verified account followed all the verified accounts on the platform.
Earlier, it was reported by The Washington Post that the microblogging platform could not remove all the legacy blue ticks because the process is largely manual and there wasn’t enough man force. Notably, in a recent interview with BBC, Musk revealed that there were 8,000 employees on Twitter when he bought the company. Currently, the staff has been cut down to 1,500 only.
According to Musk, he wants to remove legacy blue checkmarks because ‘the way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical.’
To get the blue checkmark on Twitter now, users in India have to pay Rs 9,400 a year (or Rs 900 a month) for a Twitter Blue subscription.
Notably, Twitter is planning to waive the $1,000 monthly fee for its verification program for the top 500 advertisers and the top 10,000 organisations based on their follower count.