Elon Musk is at it again. We all know that the “chief twit” isn’t very fond of the way old Twitter verified accounts which is why he has been shaking up the system both inside and out. Under his regime, virtually anybody with a phone number can buy a blue tick and get verified on Twitter. Accounts verified during the pre-Musk era now carry a banner indicating that they are legacy verified accounts and Musk— apparently— thinks they are all truly corrupt. What he seems to be forgetting is, even his own account is a legacy verified account.
Ever since Musk rolled out Twitter 2.0 with paid blue tick verification service, there’s been an air of uncertainty about what would happen to existing verified accounts. He never really fully committed to removing the blue checkmark from non-paying accounts, but you can say that the writing was on the wall. It started with Twitter showing the legacy verified banner on accounts that did not subscribe to Twitter Blue and the company’s updated terms and conditions now clearly state that it can “remove the checkmark of an account at any time without notice” under its purchaser terms of service. But a word from Musk himself, is evidently the final blow.
Musk, while responding to a user’s complaint about Twitter 2.0 verification, said “legacy blue checks will be removed soon” which is to say, you’re bound to lose your blue tick sooner rather than later if you don’t pay him money. The exact specifics –how and when it would happen— were not shared though, so we’ll have to wait and watch out on that. The second part of Musk’s response is even more interesting. He basically said all legacy verified accounts belonged to people who are truly corrupt. Again, no further details were shared.
If you head over to Twitter’s help centre and sift through the section on About Twitter Blue, you’re told the blue checkmark may mean two different things today. On the one side, there are those who were verified under previous verification criteria which is to say “active, notable, and authentic accounts of public interest that Twitter had independently verified based on certain requirements.” Musk, himself, was verified under the same system and still carries the blue tick with the legacy banner.
The others are those who’ve paid money to get it. The service is slowly expanding to more markets and has recently launched in India where you can get a blue tick (and other Twitter Blue perks) for Rs 900 a month on mobile and Rs 650 a month on the web. The verification process, here, is a little less transparent, at least on the face of it. Twitter did start an internal audit process after a string of dubious accounts got verified in exchange for money but so far, it only requires users to submit a phone number while previously, they would require more documentation.
We’re assuming, Musk will lose his blue tick too, along with everybody else, if he holds himself to the same standards and moral obligation. As for who’s corrupt and who’s not, well, we’re not judging but it’s all but certain, Musk doesn’t think of himself as being “truly corrupt”. Still, it would save him a lot of trouble if he would choose his words more wisely in the future, for all those who’ve known him, they’ve known him as a true visionary and it would be better if his words and actions were on the same page which is not the case more often than not lately.
