Twitter appears to have restored verification checkmarks to many accounts with 1M+ followers, saying they are subscribed to Blue; some deny they paid for Blue
But Some Celebrities Don't Want Them Todd Spangler / Variety : Twitter Restores Blue Check-Marks for Many Celebs, Including Several Dead Ones Stan Schroeder / Mashable : Celebs weren't buying Twitter's checkmarks so Elon just gave it back to them Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today : Twitter Reinstates Free Blue Checkmarks for Accounts with Over a Million Followers Igor Bonifacic / Engadget : Twitter adds blue checks to accounts of dead celebrities John Callaham / Neowin : Twitter is restoring blue verified checkmarks to accounts with over 1 million followers Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert / Insider : Twitter is adding verified check marks to the accounts of dead celebrities, making them look like paid Twitter Blue subscribers Low De Wei / Fortune : Twitter blue checks for dead celebrities adds to confusion over Elon Musk's changes Low De Wei / Bloomberg : Twitter's Blue Ticks Mysteriously Return — Even for the Dead The Economic Times : Elon Musk's Twitter restores legacy Blue ticks for select users Althea Legaspi / Rolling Stone : Twitter Users With a Million Followers Are Getting ‘Paid’ Blue Checks, Like It or Not Mastodon: Casey Newton / @caseynewton@mastodon.social : The obvious next step for Twitter is to announce that if you subscribe to Blue no one will be able to block you Ari Cohn / @AriCohn@masto.ai : The same people high-fiving each others' buttcheeks for publicly proclaiming that they would no longer buy Bud Light are now Extremely Bothered Online about other people publicly proclaiming that they will not buy Twitter Blue Bill Wyman / @hitsville@journa.host : Just when you thought Twitter could not get any worse. — My feed is +literally+ 50 percent filled with people talking about blue check marks. Ian Betteridge / @ianbetteridge@mastodon.me.uk : Also, just when you think that Musk can't behave more like a child, he does it. Michael Gartenberg / @Gartenberg@mastodon.social : The whole point of blue checks was Tommy LaSorta sued Twitter over a fake account and won, so blue checks solved the problem. Unfortunately it quickly became a status symbol and at one point opened it up to pretty much anyone. … Tweets: @mit : We did not subscribe to Twitter Blue. Neil Gaiman / @neilhimself : For the curious, I'm not subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven't given anyone my phone number. What a sad, muddled place this has become. https://twitter.com/... Ian McKellen / @ianmckellen : Despite the implication when you click the blue badge that has mysteriously re-appeared beside my name, I am not paying for the “honour”. Paul Krugman / @paulkrugman : So my blue check has reappeared. I had nothing to do with that, and am definitely not paying Mehdi Hasan / @mehdirhasan : So, how do all the Musk fanboys and MAGA folks on this site feel about the fact that your conquering hero said he'd bring ‘equality’ and ‘people power’ to this site and then charged you all for Twitter Blue while giving it to people like me for free? Do you feel... owned? Neil deGrasse Tyson / @neiltyson : This past week my Twitter “Blue Check” disappeared for a few days, and then reappeared today. The Universe brims with mysteries. https://twitter.com/... @lilnasx : on my soul i didn't pay for twitter blue, u will feel my wrath tesla man! Ron Perlman / @perlmutations : Just for the record, I have not subscribed to Twitter, blue, nor will I ever. Dear Elon: Creepy people do creepy things. Best regards, Ron. https://twitter.com/... David Weigel / @daveweigel : “Let's just reapply blue checks to accounts with >1 million followers, what could go wrong” https://twitter.com/... Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : All joking aside, putting a blue check on someone's profile without asking permission and then implying, say, a celebrity, paid for or endorsed a service like Twitter Blue and they did not has thorny legal implications. Other tech startups have gotten into trouble around false advertising for a lot less. Kelsey Hightower / @kelseyhightower : Twitter verifying accounts “for free” feels like an attempt to get Twitter Blue endorsements without permission from account holders. I buy clothes without logos for a reason. I don't mind paying for stuff but free advertising is out of the question. Chrissy Teigen / @chrissyteigen : wait I'm crying they're giving them for punishment now !!?!! https://twitter.com/... @divineops : The people with paid blue checks who yelled that celebrities don't like the subscription because it removes elitism Now yelling at the same celebrities to shut up and take the free, now truly elitist, blue check, because they don't get the problem with false advertising 🤦🏻♀️ @nameshiv : just incredible how fast it's turned into a stigma that every famous person on the planet feels the need to apologise for carrying lmao https://twitter.com/... @lolgop : Elon knows better than anyone that the key to running an Apartheid regime is not continually reminding people that the propped up regime only represents a tiny, creepy minority. https://twitter.com/... Fancy Waddle Dee / @fivepoisonskid : “i did not pay for twitter. i did not pay for twitter.” https://twitter.com/... Garrett M. Graff / @vermontgmg : Gotta hand it to Elon — he's gotten basically every power user, major celebrity, and company to declare in the last 72 hours that they have no interest in purchasing his product and actively discourage others to avoid it too. What's the complete reverse of viral marketing? https://twitter.com/... @mikeisaac : @goldman @monteiro imagine being the social media account manager at the Auschwitz memorial and being like “oh god, we need to make clear we didn't pay for this shit” @trekkiebill : So many people to block in the replies here. https://twitter.com/... Jason Goldman / @goldman : The account for Auschwitz clarifies they didn't pay for Blue despite it being represented as such. Paid bluecheck with 100 followers has a top reply snarking at a CONCENTRATION CAMP MEMORIAL FOR NOT SUPPORT “FREE SPEECH” It's just ... you couldn't imagine it in a marketing doc. https://twitter.com/... David Atkins / @davidoatkins : Good pay-for-twitter blocklist in the comments here. https://twitter.com/... John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton : March Musk: Twitter wasn't transparent. April Musk: I'm not saying whom I ‘gifted’ checks to. Brendan Nyhan / @brendannyhan : Inducing all of the 1M+ follower accounts to denounce your product is some god-level marketing genius https://twitter.com/... @theserfstv : ok that's really fucked up https://twitter.com/... Rick Wilson / @therickwilson : Please note: I have NOT subscribed to Twitter Blue, though for some mysterious reason, my check mark is showing again Jon Fortt / @jonfortt : I see Twitter has brilliantly “democratized” #verification by selling it to the masses willing to pay $8/month, while giving it away for free to popular accounts and celebrities, some of which don't want it. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. #TwitterBlue Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis : If I were a celebrity now stuck with the blue checkmark of the #EightBuckSchmuck, I'd sue Elon for defamation. Elon Caves, Gives Blue Checks Back to Twitter's Biggest Celebs https://www.thedailybeast.com/ ... via @thedailybeast Larry Madowo / @larrymadowo : I woke up to a blue checkmark again. I haven't paid for Twitter Blue. Reports say Elon Musk has given it back to “legacy verified” accounts with over 1 million followers. What's going on? https://twitter.com/... @gyaigyimii : Ah so if you get 1 million followers or more you get a free blue tick wey I go pay for twitter blue. Elon ankasa ma br3 nu https://twitter.com/... @robdenbleyker : Twitter Blue increases your engagement by causing the entire website to mock you in your replies Luke Bailey / @imbadatlife : Elon Musk is now re-verifying a swathe of well-followed people, who did not pay for Blue, while pretending they did. Is this illegal? Possibly! Let's find out! Luke / @lukeoneil47 : Everyone on the Titanic lining up to kick the captain in the balls one by one instead of getting on a life raft. @pixelatedboat : They're giving the blue check back to all the 1 million+ follower accounts to try to wash the stink off it but it'll never work. No one is going to believe Beyoncé paid to have the same cursed mark as all of god's least-loved children Kate / @katewitko : thread of dead celebrities that have been given twitter blue like when mormons posthumously baptize people https://twitter.com/... @bestofdyingtwit : new twitter blue feature: the jokes write themselves https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : We've finally replaced the old corrupt Twitter verification process where random celebrities got blue checks with a new Twitter Blue process where random celebrities get blue checks. Time is a flat circle. https://mashable.com/... Aaron Levie / @levie : 😂 I've got a check again. I didn't even mind eventually paying, but somehow I got bucketed into the paying protestor camp before I could do anything. Twitter, you're wild 😂. Katie Notopoulos / @katienotopoulos : Elon personally banned @MattBinder over Elon J*t stuff, then shut down all of Spaces just to stop Matt when he was able to still log in, and now forced free Blue on him. Imagine the palatial estate Matt lives in Elon's mind rent free https://twitter.com/... @nycsouthpaw : I hope this night of obscene debacles becomes at least like a business school case study in thinking about things before you do them. https://twitter.com/... @thedailybeast : Across Twitter on Saturday, some of the platform's biggest names expressed surprise when their fickle checkmarks suddenly reappeared. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ ... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Twitter had just completed its removal of legacy verification badges after planning to wind down the program introduced in 2009. Its decision to reapply badges to selected high-reach accounts, while labeling them Blue subscribers, blurs the distinction between paid membership, identity verification, and a platform-granted status.
The move also lands after major news organizations said they would not pay for or reimburse Blue subscriptions, creating a visible test of whether the badge can function as a voluntary premium product rather than an imposed platform label.
First-order effects
- High-follower accounts that did not subscribe can now appear to endorse or pay for Twitter Blue, reducing their control over how their accounts are represented on the service.
- For users, a blue check no longer reliably signals either legacy verification or an account's voluntary Blue subscription; Twitter's own label is the immediate source of that ambiguity.
Second-order effects
- Publishers, celebrities, and other prominent accounts have less reason to treat the badge as a credible paid-status signal, particularly after news outlets declined to fund Blue for their staff.
- Twitter's subscription pitch is weakened if visible adoption can be partly manufactured: prospective buyers cannot easily distinguish organic uptake from platform-assigned badges.
Third-order effects
- If verification and subscription labels remain interchangeable, account status becomes more directly governed by the platform rather than by a consistent user choice or identity process—an example of unwanted Blue badges appearing on critics' accounts.
- The broader risk is that trust markers lose their value as shared signals, pushing platforms to separate identity, reach, and paid-product benefits more clearly or accept lower confidence in their labels.
The trend: This is one data point in the shift from verification as a public-interest trust signal toward platform-controlled status and subscription monetization.