Remember when Twitter said that it’d be fully retiring its ‘Legacy’ Blue checkmarks come April 1st of this year? Yeah, well, they’re still here. We know, shocking, right? (not really). While some have, other reports have suggested that the actual process of removing blue ticks will take time. It’s quite possible that Twitter may even have to remove them manually, one by one – the fact that Twitter culled more than 75% of its total workforce doesn’t help this one bit. Meanwhile, Twitter has come up with another way to ‘Democratize’ the blue tick.
Is This Verified?
Over the weekend, Twitter updated the wording of the pop-up that appears when you click on a checkmark in the app, which now makes it impossible to tell whether an account is paying for Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account. Up until now, Twitter’s pop-up has clearly distinguished that an account is either subscribed to Twitter Blue or was verified under the previous regime. Now, this new wording melds the two – which is great for Twitter Blue subscribers, who are paying $8 per month for a level of exclusivity and perceived notoriety, while older verified accounts now potentially lose the very same thing.
Perhaps that is the biggest flaw in the whole process of selling verification ticks – that the value of the product that you’re selling is diminished with every subsequent sale, because the more people that pay for checkmarks in the app, the less distinguishing it is to own one. However, this new wording blurs out this line right away, even if it does take Twitter weeks or months to actually remove the old, veteran blues.
Eventually, though, you’ll be able to tell either way, as they’ll be the only accounts appearing in recommendations. It might be a bigger move now – in separating paying users, which may make it less important that Twitter removes the old marks in a timely manner. But, without a dedicated verification in place, you can’t really call any account ‘verified’. Either way, Twitter’s new checkmarks boil down to showcasing people who are willing to pay for them.
Chief Twit Elon Musk has said that, soon, accounts will show the date of verification, as another means to help users understand their validity, but as of this moment, Twitter Blue currently doesn’t have an ID check or qualification process. In short, you pay, – you get a checkmark.
The Wrap
It doesn’t really mean much then, other than the user’s willingness to pay for internet points. In theory, as Musk has noted, it could work as a deterrent of sorts to stop scammers from creating armies of bot accounts, as they’ll have to pay to get any real reach. But in reality, it’s probably not going to be an effective approach on this front either. So, for now, legacy verified users have retained their checkmarks until Twitter gets around to removing them. The big milestone, then, is April 15th, when only paying accounts will have their Tweets shown in the ‘For You’ Feeds of users that don’t already follow them.
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