Twitter plans to wind down its legacy verified program, first introduced in June 2009, and remove legacy verified checkmarks starting on April 1, 2023
Ahead Of Twitter's Looming Verification Rollback Muskaan Saxena / TechRadar : Twitter's blue-check doomsday date is set and it's no April Fool's joke Megan Ellis / MakeUseOf : Twitter to Start Removing Legacy Verified Checkmarks Stephen Warwick / iMore : Twitter is about to take everyone's blue checkmarks away, unless you pay for one David Joseppi / The Apple Post : Twitter to remove ‘legacy’ verified badges in April, axing blue checkmarks from non-paying verified accounts Blathnaid O'Dea / Silicon Republic : Twitter is taking away its legacy verification programme starting 1 April Justin Luna / Neowin : Twitter to wind down legacy checkmarks on April 1st as Blue becomes available globally Pahi Mehra / TechCircle : Twitter to remove legacy blue ticks from April 1 Marvie Basilan / International Business Times : ‘Makes No Sense’: Users Criticize Twitter's Move To End ‘Legacy’ Checks From April 1 Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson / BetaNews : Twitter says it is stripping all verified accounts of their ‘legacy’ blue ticks from April Maggie Tillman / Pocket-lint : Twitter: To keep legacy verified checkmark, pay for Blue The Verge : Twitter claims ‘legacy’ blue checkmarks will start to disappear on April Fools' Day Joe Rogun / MSPoweruser : Twitter Blue is now available globally Suraksha.P / The Economic Times : Twitter users to lose blue checkmarks from April 1 unless subscribed to Twitter Blue Mariella Moon / Engadget : Twitter says it's killing legacy verified checkmarks starting on April 1st Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch : Twitter will kill ‘legacy’ blue checks on April 1 Kellen / Droid Life : Twitter to Remove Legacy Verified Checks Because It Wants People to Pay for Them Tim Stelloh / NBC News : Twitter to end verification system that gave blue check marks to notable accounts Trevor Mogg / Digital Trends : No joke: Twitter is taking away your blue check on April 1, unless you pay Bradly Shankar / MobileSyrup : Twitter to begin removing legacy verified checkmarks on April 1 Ben Schoon / 9to5Google : Twitter expands Blue globally, will pull checkmarks from accounts that are actually verified next week The Verge : Twitter Blue rolls out globally, but the subscription service is still missing promised features like prioritized ranking in conversations and half as many ads Mastodon: @malwaretech@infosec.exchange : Really frustrating that a bunch of people are going to end up getting scammed once everyone loses their verification, all because Elon's parents didn't give him enough love as a kid. Dwight Silverman / @dsilverman@mastodon.social : And a reminder that there's a wonderful Chrome and Edge extension called Eight Dollars that shows you the difference between legacy and paid verified checkmarks on Twitter. Original verified shows as “Verified,” while Twitter blue verifieds show as “Paid.” … Lauren Weinstein / @lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org : @mmasnick I'll feel honored the day Elon takes away mine. Casey Newton / @caseynewton@mastodon.social : Reminder that Twitter has no system for removing badges at scale and will basically just have to use the list of accounts followed by @verified and start removing them manually. Have fun gang Christina Warren / @film_girl@mastodon.social : I cannot understand why a man who is literally nothing but ego cannot grep that ego and vanity via a verified badge are what your “famous” users use your platform and thus get others to use it. … Christina Warren / @film_girl@mastodon.social : Meanwhile, over on Twitter, Elon is getting rid of legacy check marks, thus ruining the whole reason anyone would pay for Twitter Blue. And I'm expecting this to last 35 seconds until all the celebrities … Mike Masnick / @mmasnick@mastodon.social : This can't come soon enough. Take away my damn blue check. https://variety.com/... Danilo / @danilo@hachyderm.io : lmao April 1 is when Twitter removes all non-payola verifications — https://mobile.twitter.com/... Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung@mastodon.social : Twitter to “wind down” its legacy blue checkmark verification program on April 1(!). So if you want to be “verified”, you have to pay. — https://twitter.com/... Tweets: @verified : On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://twitter.com/... Organizations can sign up for https://twitter.com/...... https://twitter.com/... @twitterblue : Twitter Blue is now available globally! Sign up today to get your blue checkmark, prioritized ranking in conversations, half ads, long Tweets, Bookmark Folders, custom navigation, Edit Tweet, Undo Tweet, and more. Sign up here: https://twitter.com/... Alex Howard / @digiphile : News media should make it clearer that Musk's animus towards journalists is being expressed through removing @verified status, as with his attempts to delegitimize journalism & outlets which holds him to account. TBD? How many outlets pay him to get seen: https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Elon Musk / @elonmusk : Any individual person's Twitter account affiliated with a verified organization is automatically verified https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : “Paid for Twitter blue” has become an extremely reliable predictor of quality, just not in the way that Elon meant https://twitter.com/... Terry Moran / @terrymoran : Glad to see the original blue checkmark go away. It served no real purpose, except as a focus of preening vanity on one side, sneering resentment on the other. To be fair, though, @Twitter should change the designation from “Twitter Verified” to “Twitter Paid.” https://twitter.com/... Redi Tlhabi / @reditlhabi : Take your blue tick! You have already messed up the platform! We don't see tweets from our people & they don't see ours. But YOUR suggestions and ads somehow sneak through despite “turn off.” Let's not forget the “I'm so grateful to Luciano. I invested $1 & made $100 000!” Tsek! https://twitter.com/... Jody Hamilton / @fromthebunkerjr : Now I will know who is dumb enough to pay for a blue check and realize not to follow them. https://twitter.com/... Taylor Lewan / @taylorlewan77 : I remember training for the combine and getting verified. I truly thought I made it. Sad day for Twitter Taylor https://twitter.com/... Eva / @evacide : This is the natural end-game in the process of turning the blue check from a verification of identity to a source of ridicule and shame. https://twitter.com/... Timothy B. Lee / @binarybits : God, I wish there were a setting where I could hide all paid-blue-check long tweets. Every time I click one of those “show more” links I regret it. Obviously Elon isn't going to offer this option. Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Twitter is broken all the time but don't worry, they're working on high priority features like charging you $8/month to let everyone know you were dumb enough to pay for Twitter. https://twitter.com/... Dylan Allman / @dylanmallman : The point of the checkmark isn't to display that someone is notable. It's to verify that the account is who they say they are. Twitter has a lengthy verification process anytime someone signs up for Blue. It just won't be free anymore. Nothing else has changed. https://twitter.com/... Josh Barro / @jbarro : I disagree: news media should not spend more time arguing that taking away our checkmarks is an attack on the free press https://twitter.com/... Nicholas Kristof / @nickkristof : Twitter will probably lose money from this step, because I expect very few news organizations or individual journalists will pay for blue checks, and administering the change will not be cheap. Seems another self-inflicted wounding of Twitter. https://twitter.com/... Alex Howard / @digiphile : Notes from @TechmemeChatter: https://www.techmeme.com/... -Nonprofits & local governments can't or won't pay $1000/month + $50/account for @verified status -@TwitterBlue hasn't shipped new features -Removing verification on #AprilFoolsDay is fraught; beware impersonation & fraud @ryback : Are you going to fix the algorithm before this and my account? This is very important to a lot of people and should be priority number one in the corruption that took place before you took over. https://twitter.com/... @reignofapril : This is WILD. Elon is taking the blue check away from the legacy accounts, leaving only those who paid for them. But everyone knows the negative stigma attached to being a Twitter Blue subscriber, so he's letting those folks hide the fact that they paid for a check. 😒 https://twitter.com/... Drew Gooden / @drewisgooden : the only value of a twitter blue checkmark now is that people might mistake you for someone who is actually notable. if you get rid of every other checkmark, then the twitter blue checkmark literally means nothing. they're actually devaluing their own product by doing this. https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : For $1000/month, which very few will do. 🙄 https://twitter.com/... Dan Primack / @danprimack : The organization verification cost is $1k per month, which will difficult and/or prohibitive for certain small businesses, nonprofits and local government groups. https://twitter.com/... Luke Zaleski / @zaleskiluke : Elon's arc is filling up like the titanic https://twitter.com/... @golub : All Russian bot farms too? https://twitter.com/... @jessphoenix2018 : This is going to wreck what's left of this site's value as a communication platform. If we could just get the rich kids with new toys to stop tearing everything down because they didn't come up with it first, that would be terrific. https://twitter.com/... Neville Hobson / @jangles : Somehow #AprilFoolsDay seems most appropriate for my #Twitter legacy byebye https://twitter.com/... Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / @aoc : Last time they tried this someone pretended to be Eli Lilly and tanked their stock price by pretending insulin was free https://twitter.com/... @jacksfilms : On April 1st, you are legally allowed to bully anyone left with a blue checkmark https://twitter.com/... Max Berger / @maxberger : Twitter is going to get rid of verification on April Fools Day. I am sure that will not cause any problems! https://twitter.com/... David Doel / @daviddoel : Twitter wants $1000/month for big sites to keep their checkmark 😂 As stated below, Twitter drives almost no engagement. My links to YouTube will get like 9 likes yet I'll have 100k views on that YouTube video. Twitter as a platform is largely self-contained. https://twitter.com/... @froomkin : I wonder if every organization is going to start paying a grand to @elonmusk — or none. https://variety.com/... Valerie Bertinelli / @wolfiesmom : He must be trying to make twitter obsolete. It's the only explanation. Every single decision he has made has put this app deeper in it's grave. https://twitter.com/... Dan Jurgens / @thedanjurgens : Here's a betting idea, @elonmusk. Instead of people paying for verification, how about making them pay for anonymity? Much of what's wrong with social media originates with people hiding behind phony identities so... make them pay for the privilege. https://twitter.com/... @zaackhunt : Apparently Elon decided the best way for him to pay back those $42 billion in loans is to turnTwitter into his own personal GoFundMe https://twitter.com/... Gehrig Dieter / @gehrigdieter : It was good while it lasted! 🤦🏼♂️ https://twitter.com/... David Hogg / @davidhogg111 : I'm not doing it so be carful what you see “me” say there might be fake accounts saying false things impersonating me. https://twitter.com/... Amy Gaeta / @gaetaamy : Best argument for more twitter blue https://twitter.com/... Tara Haelle / @tarahaelle : Once this policy is in place, a blue check will no longer enable to tell you who is really who they claim to be, but it will helpfully indicate the chumps and suckers whose ego compels them to spend money to feel better about themselves. https://twitter.com/... @muellershewrote : So to keep my blue check, I have to pay a sad billionaire $11 a month? Welp, it's been a good run, blue check. It's not me. It's you. Don't let the door hitcha. https://twitter.com/... @joshconstine : Truly unhinged. Twitter is removing actual Verified profiles' checkmarks but will still let anyone buy them... starting April Fool's Day. So blue checks go from “not a scammer” to “best way to trick people into scams”, and Twitter ruins this safeguard for the whole internet. Scott Monty / @scottmonty : Well, it was nice while it lasted... https://twitter.com/... Jon Alba / @jonalba : Verification was once an important tool in fact-checking, sourcing, and validating information. It no longer matters. Won't be getting my money, not that he cares. The downfall of this platform just really, really sucks for people who used it for things other than shit-posting. https://twitter.com/... Anthony Oliveira / @meakoopa : timing the death of verification and the subsequent flood of fake accounts for April Fools Day lmao https://twitter.com/... Peter Sterne / @petersterne : If you're an organization and you want to keep your verification, you'll need to pay $1000 PER MONTH. I predict a lot of newsrooms will soon be un-verified. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : My hope is that being de-verified will lead to my tweets getting less engagement and then I won't tweet so much. 🙏 https://twitter.com/... Evan DeSimone / @mediaevan : At this point this is good news. Once they eliminate legacy checks the check mark will be a pretty clear indicator that someone shouldn't be taken seriously. Clarity is better than the current confusion. https://twitter.com/... Kevin M. Kruse / @kevinmkruse : As of April 1st, only the fools will have checkmarks. https://twitter.com/... @eve6 : Humbly requesting that you remove ours immediately so people don't think we're a white nationalist with 30 followers https://twitter.com/... Chris Messina / @chrismessina : So long my Verified Blue Check! Long have I known you! 👋🏻 🥲 Also, love that this is launching on April Fool's Day. https://twitter.com/... @leftatlondon : once i no longer have a legacy checkmark i will have nothing left to lose. i will start threatening people on here. i will commit cybercrimes. you dont want this. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer