For context, the blue checkmark is currently only a sign that someone has purchased a Twitter Blue subscription. Former function – politicians, celebrities, companies, etc. mark their official page – inherited with similar gray and gold checkmarks. The first is awarded to statesmen (politicians such as Joe Biden or Volodymyr Zelenskyi), while the second, complete with a square avatar, is awarded to companies that have submitted the relevant application. All the rest are left behind: famous people, singers, actors, activists – in short, all the well-known people whose pages could be imitated by fraudsters. No new color was found for them. So there’s nothing stopping you from creating a page for a hypothetical Bill Gates, buying a Twitter Blue subscription, and acting like a billionaire. He will no longer be able to confirm that his page is official.

what is it now

The free terms of use for blue ticks have expired. The social network removed the tags from the accounts of anyone who did not pay for the subscription. Yes, the same Bill Gates, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, Cristiano Ronaldo and Pope Francis have lost their validation. You can list endlessly. Now everyone you see a tick is a Twitter Blue follower.

Musk never liked Twitter’s verification system. Announcedwhat is it division into “lords and peasants”, where celebrities have a label and ordinary people don’t. Therefore, the $8 subscription should supposedly equalize everyone, democratize the social network.

But Musk seems to have his favourites. Yes, for some reason basketball player LeBron James and writer Stephen King have not lost their grades. Neither subscribed to Twitter Blue and paid $8.

“My Twitter account says I subscribed to Twitter Blue. I didn’t subscribe. My Twitter account says I provided a phone number. I didn’t”– Wrote Stephen King.

As for LeBron James, who is widely cited as Twitter’s most notorious paid verification hater, he had previously publicly announced that he would not pay for a subscription. On April 21, The Verge wrote that the athlete received a letter from a representative of the company to which he was offered. Free subscription “in the name of Elon Musk”. It is impossible to distinguish it from normal, because the markup and accompanying text are the same. That way, all of James’ 52 million followers think he’s using Twitter Blue.

Canadian actor William Shatner, best known for his role as Captain Kirk in the Star Trek series, is also among such free Blue users.

As it turned out later, Musk pays for these subscriptions voluntarily.. The head of the company confirmed this information himself. It’s unclear whether he’s paying for them out of his own pocket, or whether he’s ordered engineers to arrange for Blue’s free assignment at the code level.

It seems we are all peasants,
– Sean Hollister, senior editor of The Verge, summed up the whole situation with blue ticks.