The chaos and fiasco on Twitter continue. Is it true personalities like LeBron James, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Pope Francis, Lady Gaga, and Demi Lovato, among many others, are not paying for the verification on Twitter? Apparently, they are not after the Elon Musk-run Twitter platform has removed their blue check statuses. Here is the news.
Many high-profile Twitter users lost their blue checks late last week. These blue checks had been helping verify their identities and distinguish them from impostors. Those who failed to pay a monthly fee to keep them got their blue checks removed.
Twitter had approximately 300,000 verified users under this original blue-check system, including journalists, athletes, and public figures. However, some of them began disappearing from users’ profiles recently.
Some of those who lost their Twitter blue checks were Beyoncé, Chrissy Teigen, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Demi Lovato, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey, author Nail Gaiman, and former president Donald Trump, among others.
How much does the blue check cost?
The cost of the blue check or the verified status ranges from $8 per month for individual users to a starting price of $100 per month for organizations. Plus, there is also a $50 monthly charge for each affiliate or employee account.
However, some prominent Twitter accounts’ blue checks were restored shortly after, including those of LeBron James, William Shatner, and Stephen King. Musk personally intervened and paid for their verification from his own pocket to make sure their profiles continue to be verified.
“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,” tweeted author Stephen King. To which Elon Musk replied via a tweet too, saying, “You’re welcome namaste (emoji)”
What’s even weirder is that personalities who have passed away are getting their blue checks restored, including the accounts of Michael Jackson, Koby Bryant, and Anthony Bourdain.
It was not only celebrities who lost their verification statuses. Many government agencies, nonprofits, and public service accounts worldwide have also lost their blue checks, raising concerns that the social media platform could lose its status as an avenue for getting accurate and up-to-date information from authentic sources, including during emergencies.
Stir
This has caused a stir in the online community, with some questioning the legality of Twitter’s recent actions. Nobody knows how many users got their blue checks restored and whether this came free of charge or somebody else paid for the restoration. What is clear is that Twitter’s decisions are causing confusion and backlash among its netizens.
“Honestly, the Twitter blue check fiasco is one of the biggest business fails ever. Elon removing the check marks from all of the legacy accounts completely deincentivizes the whole purpose of the checkmark. It also makes it embarrassing to own one tbh. (emoji),” tweeted chief engineer at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Carson Garrett.
