Twitter has again changed how it describes blue tick badges, effectively stripping its whole verification system of the last shred of meaning it still had.
Late last month, Twitter announced it would begin to remove free blue verification badges from legacy verified accounts on Apr. 1. These badges had been applied to the accounts of people who were notable in their field of work and thus likely targets for impersonation, such as actors, reporters, and politicians. If these users still want to keep their blue tick badge, Twitter said they'll need to pay $8 per month for its subscription service Twitter Blue going forward.
However, April Fools' Day has since come and gone, and the expected blue tick rapture never arrived. Instead, Twitter simply quietly updated its description of blue ticks so that they're all identical regardless of if they were paid for or not.
Previously, clicking or tapping on a blue tick badge in a user's profile would cause a window to pop up offering one of two explanations. If the badge belonged to a legacy verified account, the text would read, "This account is verified because it’s notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category." In contrast, if the user paid Twitter for their little blue badge, the window would instead read, "This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue."
Now after Twitter's recent update, the same message appears regardless of whether the blue tick was earned or bought: "This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account."
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This change may be due to Twitter's legacy verification system. According to a report by The Washington Post(opens in a new tab), removing the blue tick badges is "a largely manual process" that involves verification data saved in a spreadsheet. This means that there may be no way to bulk remove verification badges from legacy accounts as Twitter had implied it would do.
With Twitter having laid off thousands of employees over the past few months, it's also possible there aren't enough people left to manually remove legacy badges in any sort of timely fashion.
Thus, rather than actually remove legacy verified blue ticks, Twitter has simply made them indistinguishable from paid badges. And in doing so, it has also made impersonators completely indistinguishable from real accounts.
This has not been a popular decision among Twitter's users. Some have pointed out that not only does this change make Twitter's blue ticks mean even less than they already did, but it also has the potential to do immense harm by giving scammers the guise of credibility.
Mashable reached out to Twitter for comment and received its poop emoji auto-response.
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One legacy-verified Twitter account that did lose its blue tick was the New York Times(opens in a new tab), which stated it has no plans to pay for the check mark. However, this specific removal appears to have occurred after a user made Twitter CEO Elon Musk aware of the publication's stance through a meme(opens in a new tab), rather than through Twitter removing legacy badges more generally. This also prompted Musk to post tweets disparaging(opens in a new tab) the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times'(opens in a new tab) reporting.
The New York Times isn't the only legacy-verified user to publicly state that they'd rather let their blue tick disappear than subscribe to Twitter Blue. Numerous others, including actors Ian McKellen(opens in a new tab) and Karl Urban(opens in a new tab), basketball player LeBron James(opens in a new tab), and wrestler Big Damo(opens in a new tab) have also indicated they won't pay, warning followers to be on the lookout for scammers and impersonators going forward.
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Ironically, if Twitter's policy continues as it is, a blue tick may eventually become a mark against an account's legitimacy.
