Twitter's free program for verifying notable users with blue checkmarks may soon come to an end, as Elon Musk has been threatening to remove them since he took control of the company in October. The company announced on Thursday that it will begin winding down the legacy verified program and removing the checkmarks on April 1st, although this being April Fool's Day, it's not clear if this is a genuine move or just a prank. Twitter is now urging users to sign up for Twitter Blue, a subscription service that Musk relaunched last year at a cost of $84 per year or $8 per month. This move provides a revenue stream for Twitter, which currently relies heavily on advertisers, who have been leaving the platform since Musk took over.
The brief history of Twitter Blue. Charging for Twitter verification not only provides Twitter with additional revenue, but it also offers Elon Musk an opportunity to show his contempt for government agencies, journalists, and other users. However, creating a replacement program for the legacy verification system has proven challenging.
Twitter Blue was initially introduced in 2021, prior to Musk's takeover, as a subscription service that offered premium features, including the ability to undo a tweet and save bookmarks to folders. Musk reintroduced the program in November 2022, with a blue checkmark added to the features for paying subscribers.
Unfortunately, the service was quickly inundated with users who had paid for counterfeit accounts pretending to be well-known figures, including former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, LeBron James, and Nintendo. The impostor Nintendo account, before being suspended, tweeted a picture of the video game character Mario giving the middle finger, while the LeBron James account falsely claimed that the athlete had requested a trade.
After a few weeks of suspension, Musk relaunched Twitter Blue in December with additional measures for reviewing and approving subscribers. In addition to the blue checkmark, paid subscribers are allowed to edit a tweet up to five times within 30 minutes, compose tweets up to 4,000 characters in length, and post high-definition videos.
Furthermore, Twitter Blue users will experience 50% fewer ads in their home timelines, and their tweets will receive priority placement in replies, mentions, and searches. For companies and other organizations, Twitter Blue costs $1,000 per month for the primary account and $50 per month for each related account.