True to his word, Elon Musk took the legacy verified blue checkmarks away last week and followed this unprecedented move on Twitter was pure chaos.
What Happened: After Musk announced that the coveted blue checkmark on Twitter would only be given to people who pay him $8 a month — except for a lucky few — a new campaign called “Block the Blue” quickly gained momentum.
This campaign, endorsed by Twitter accounts like @dril, who was reportedly put on Musk’s “VIP” list of 35 prominent ones, aimed to block accounts paying for the subscription.
However, Musk has apparently come up with a solution.
Twitter seems to be restoring blue ticks to some accounts, according to some media reports and user accounts — the criteria appear to be that a user needs to have more than a million followers to get the verified label. But some users have pointed out that this move is misleading as the badge denotes they have paid for the service even though they have not shelled out any money.
What’s even more bizarre is that even accounts of dead celebrities seem to have blue verified checkmarks now.
This approach has made the entire “Block the Blue” campaign moot because now there’s no way to identify who paid for the checkmark and who didn’t — unless the account holders clarify it.
Twitter has also suspended the @BlockTheBlue account on the site.
Why It’s Important: Musk’s highly-ambitious Twitter subscription model didn’t really go as planned. Two reports previously stated that Twitter Blue subscribers’ numbers had not even doubled a month after its relaunch.
One report stated that, as of mid-January 2023, approximately 180,000 individuals in the U.S. subscribed to various services, including Twitter Blue, accounting for less than 0.2% of the platform’s monthly active users.
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