SAN FRANCISCO: Many of Twitter‘s high-profile customers are dropping the blue tests that helped examine their identities and distinguish them from impostors at the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.
After a number of false begins, Twitter started making just right on its promise Thursday to take away the blue tests from accounts that do not pay a per month charge to stay them. Twitter had about 300,000 verified customers underneath the unique blue-check gadget — a lot of them reporters, athletes and public figures. The tests — which used to imply the account used to be verified through Twitter to be who it says it’s — started disappearing from those customers’ profiles past due morning Pacific Time.
High-profile customers who misplaced their blue tests Thursday incorporated Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and previous President Donald Trump,
The prices of holding the marks vary from $8 a month for person internet customers to a beginning worth of $1,000 per month to make sure a company, plus $50 per month for every associate or worker account. Twitter does no longer examine the person accounts, as used to be the case with the former blue examine doled out all the way through the platform’s pre-Musk management.
Celebrity customers, from basketball superstar LeBron James to creator Stephen King and Star Trek’s William Shatner, have balked at becoming a member of — despite the fact that on Thursday, all 3 had blue tests indicating that the account paid for verification.
King, for one, mentioned he hadn’t been paid.
“My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t,” King tweeted Thursday. “Just so you know.”
In reply to King’s tweet, Musk said “You’re welcome namaste” and in another tweet he said he’s “paying for a few personally.” He later tweeted that he was just paying for King, Shatner and James.
Singer Dionne Warwick tweeted earlier in the week that the site’s verification system “is an absolute mess.”
“The way Twitter is going anyone could be me now,” Warwick said. She had earlier vowed not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee “could (and will) be going toward my extra hot lattes.”
On Thursday, Warwick lost her blue check (which is actually a white check mark in a blue background).
For users who still had a blue check Thursday, a popup message indicated that the account “is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.” Verifying a phone number simply means that the person has a phone number and they verified that they have access to it — it does not confirm the person’s identity.
It wasn’t just celebrities and journalists who lost their blue checks Thursday. Many government agencies, nonprofits and public-service accounts around the world found themselves no longer verified, raising concerns that Twitter could lose its status as a platform for getting accurate, up-to-date information from authentic sources, including in emergencies.
While Twitter offers gold checks for “verified organizations” and gray checks for government organizations and their affiliates, it’s not clear how the platform does these out and they were not seen Thursday on many previously verified agency and public service accounts.
The official Twitter account of the New York City government, which earlier had a blue check, tweeted on Thursday that “This is an authentic Twitter account representing the New York City Government This is the only account for @NYCGov run by New York City government” in an attempt to clear up confusion.
A newly created spoof account with 36 followers (also without a blue check), disagreed: “No, you’re not. THIS account is the only authentic Twitter account representing and run by the New York City Government.”
Soon, any other spoof account — purporting to be Pope Francis — weighed in too: “By the authority vested in me, Pope Francis, I claim @NYC_GOVERNMENT the respectable New York City Government. Peace be with you.”
Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts appear to have paid to join Twitter Blue as of Thursday, according to an analysis by Travis Brown, a Berlin-based developer of software for tracking social media.
Musk’s move has riled up some high-profile users and pleased some right-wing figures and Musk fans who thought the marks were unfair. But it is not an obvious money-maker for the social media platform that has long relied on advertising for most of its revenue.
Digital intelligence platform Similarweb analyzed how many people signed up for Twitter Blue on their desktop computers and only detected 116,000 confirmed sign-ups last month, which at $8 or $11 per month does not represent a major revenue stream. The analysis did not count accounts bought via mobile apps.
After buying San Francisco-based Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others granted verification for free by Twitter’s previous leadership.
Twitter began tagging profiles with a blue check mark starting about 14 years ago. Along with shielding celebrities from impersonators, one of the main reasons was to provide an additional tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts impersonating people. Most “legacy blue tests,” together with the accounts of politicians, activists and those that abruptly to find themselves within the information, in addition to little-known reporters at small publications all over the world, don’t seem to be family names.
One of Musk’s first product strikes after taking on Twitter used to be to release a carrier granting blue tests to any individual prepared to pay $8 a month. But it used to be briefly inundated through impostor accounts, together with the ones impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical corporate Eli Lilly and Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter needed to quickly droop the carrier days after its release.
The relaunched carrier prices $8 a month for internet customers and $11 a month for customers of its iPhone or Android apps. Subscribers are meant to see fewer commercials, be capable of put up longer movies and feature their tweets featured extra prominently.
After a number of false begins, Twitter started making just right on its promise Thursday to take away the blue tests from accounts that do not pay a per month charge to stay them. Twitter had about 300,000 verified customers underneath the unique blue-check gadget — a lot of them reporters, athletes and public figures. The tests — which used to imply the account used to be verified through Twitter to be who it says it’s — started disappearing from those customers’ profiles past due morning Pacific Time.
High-profile customers who misplaced their blue tests Thursday incorporated Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and previous President Donald Trump,
The prices of holding the marks vary from $8 a month for person internet customers to a beginning worth of $1,000 per month to make sure a company, plus $50 per month for every associate or worker account. Twitter does no longer examine the person accounts, as used to be the case with the former blue examine doled out all the way through the platform’s pre-Musk management.
Celebrity customers, from basketball superstar LeBron James to creator Stephen King and Star Trek’s William Shatner, have balked at becoming a member of — despite the fact that on Thursday, all 3 had blue tests indicating that the account paid for verification.
King, for one, mentioned he hadn’t been paid.
“My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t,” King tweeted Thursday. “Just so you know.”
In reply to King’s tweet, Musk said “You’re welcome namaste” and in another tweet he said he’s “paying for a few personally.” He later tweeted that he was just paying for King, Shatner and James.
Singer Dionne Warwick tweeted earlier in the week that the site’s verification system “is an absolute mess.”
“The way Twitter is going anyone could be me now,” Warwick said. She had earlier vowed not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee “could (and will) be going toward my extra hot lattes.”
On Thursday, Warwick lost her blue check (which is actually a white check mark in a blue background).
For users who still had a blue check Thursday, a popup message indicated that the account “is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.” Verifying a phone number simply means that the person has a phone number and they verified that they have access to it — it does not confirm the person’s identity.
It wasn’t just celebrities and journalists who lost their blue checks Thursday. Many government agencies, nonprofits and public-service accounts around the world found themselves no longer verified, raising concerns that Twitter could lose its status as a platform for getting accurate, up-to-date information from authentic sources, including in emergencies.
While Twitter offers gold checks for “verified organizations” and gray checks for government organizations and their affiliates, it’s not clear how the platform does these out and they were not seen Thursday on many previously verified agency and public service accounts.
The official Twitter account of the New York City government, which earlier had a blue check, tweeted on Thursday that “This is an authentic Twitter account representing the New York City Government This is the only account for @NYCGov run by New York City government” in an attempt to clear up confusion.
A newly created spoof account with 36 followers (also without a blue check), disagreed: “No, you’re not. THIS account is the only authentic Twitter account representing and run by the New York City Government.”
Soon, any other spoof account — purporting to be Pope Francis — weighed in too: “By the authority vested in me, Pope Francis, I claim @NYC_GOVERNMENT the respectable New York City Government. Peace be with you.”
Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts appear to have paid to join Twitter Blue as of Thursday, according to an analysis by Travis Brown, a Berlin-based developer of software for tracking social media.
Musk’s move has riled up some high-profile users and pleased some right-wing figures and Musk fans who thought the marks were unfair. But it is not an obvious money-maker for the social media platform that has long relied on advertising for most of its revenue.
Digital intelligence platform Similarweb analyzed how many people signed up for Twitter Blue on their desktop computers and only detected 116,000 confirmed sign-ups last month, which at $8 or $11 per month does not represent a major revenue stream. The analysis did not count accounts bought via mobile apps.
After buying San Francisco-based Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others granted verification for free by Twitter’s previous leadership.
Twitter began tagging profiles with a blue check mark starting about 14 years ago. Along with shielding celebrities from impersonators, one of the main reasons was to provide an additional tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts impersonating people. Most “legacy blue tests,” together with the accounts of politicians, activists and those that abruptly to find themselves within the information, in addition to little-known reporters at small publications all over the world, don’t seem to be family names.
One of Musk’s first product strikes after taking on Twitter used to be to release a carrier granting blue tests to any individual prepared to pay $8 a month. But it used to be briefly inundated through impostor accounts, together with the ones impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical corporate Eli Lilly and Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter needed to quickly droop the carrier days after its release.
The relaunched carrier prices $8 a month for internet customers and $11 a month for customers of its iPhone or Android apps. Subscribers are meant to see fewer commercials, be capable of put up longer movies and feature their tweets featured extra prominently.