Twitter appears to be restoring
the legacy blue badges for accounts with more than 1 million followers,
even if they did not pay for a subscription to the service.
The company has "re-verified" a number of high-profile followers, including some accounts belonging to dead celebrities.
- Last week, Twitter began removing the blue check marks from accounts that hadn't signed up for a paid subscription to its Twitter Blue service.
- CEO Elon Musk later said
that he was paying for “a few” subscriptions “personally,” including
those belonging to LeBron James, Stephen King, and William Shatner.
- Several
high-profile accounts, including those belonging to Neil Gaiman, Lil
Nas X, and Richard Osman, have also confirmed that they have received
blue checks despite not paying for them.
- Twitter is also requiring companies that want to advertise on the platform to pay for
verification, although businesses already spending $1,000+ a month on
ads automatically receive the checks, which are gold instead of blue.
- According to TechCrunch, the interest in Twitter Blue, available for $8 per month, has been "underwhelming" since its relaunch in December.
- The paid service brought in only $11M worth of mobile-based subscriptions for the first three months, the report found.