- Twitter has officially begun removing legacy verification checkmarks on its platform, after initially planning to do so on 1st April.
- It is unsurprising that it started on 4/20, with Musk keen to highlight his penchant for weed jokes.
- Moving forward you’ll need to pay R149.99 per month to restore the blue checkmark.
Legacy verification checkmarks continue to be a mess on Twitter. The platform had originally planned to pull said checkmarks on 1st April, but that plan was pushed back to a later date this month.
Now we know why, as yesterday was 20th April, or 4/20, and unsurprisingly that is when legacy verification checkmarks have officially begun to be pulled. This makes a lot of sense, in terms of the date Twitter chose to implement this change, as owner Elon Musk is partial to a weed joke.
After all he did purchase the platform for $54.20 a share.
Back to the blue checkmarks and users are starting to have them pulled, but it does not seem to apply to everyone. LeBron James’s account for example, still has the checkmark after he tweeted out that he refused to pay for Twitter Blue.
It therefore looks like the pulling of legacy checkmarks does not apply to all.
Moving forward, however, users who want their blue checkmark back, or indeed just want one at all, will need to sign up and pay for Twitter Blue, which costs R144.99 per month.
Now on Twitter, only paid users, businesses, government organisations, and officials will have checkmarks, with each assigned different colours based on the group they belong to. Looking at some high profile accounts, Pope Francis has had his blue checkmark removed and replaced with a grey one.
Still, this process has not been without hiccups, as is the case with most changes at Twitter these days, with reporters from several overseas outlets noting that their checkmarks are “flickering” and displaying as blue every now and then.
Either way, the era of everyone needing to pay for Twitter seems to be taking effect.
