Twitter announced that it will begin “reducing” its legacy verification program and removing “legacy verification ticks” from April 1, and will require users to subscribe to its Blue subscription if they want to keep their blue check.
There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the announcement is not necessarily a surprise. CEO Elon Musk was promising to get rid of the “legacy” blue checkmarks or verification badges that were awarded under Twitter’s previous rules, since November, and it is reiterated that they would leave “in the coming months” several times. According to Muskthese verification badges were distributed in a “corrupt and nonsensical” way (although they are actually very useful in allowing users to confirm that the celebrities they are interacting with are indeed the real person).
However, it’s also hard to ignore that April Fool’s Day is April Fool’s Day, the worst holiday, and a big part of Elon Musk’s personality is being a troll. It is extremely It’s possible that this announcement, which comes from the verified Twitter account and not Musk’s account, is just an attempt to freak out people with legacy checkmarks. It’s a meme at this point that members of the press are overrepresented in the Verified Legacy User Group, and these days Musk is clearly not A fan of the media.
It’s also possible that Twitter actually intends to do this, and the date was just chosen as a troll, the way Musk likes to work 69 and 420 in almost everything he do. Also, he just added a huge banner announcing the change on top of a checked Edge reporter’s timeline, so maybe it’s really going to happen.
Even though the date is serious, Musk’s Twitter made a lot of promises about the service’s future that weren’t delivered. For example, Musk announced a revenue-sharing program in February, and his tweets are still the only thing we’ve heard of. (Several Blue Twitter followers said The edge they haven’t heard of the program either.) Musk also promised to open source “all code used to recommend tweets” March 31after missing his first self-imposed deadline to do so.
He did, however, keep one’s promise for Twitter’s press email to respond to inquiries with a poop emoji, which it did when we sent out a request for comment for this story.
This new timeline for the end of legacy checkmarks comes as Twitter says it has now rolled out Twitter Blue subscriptions globally, though several promised features are still missing. If you are a brand or any government entity that requires non-blue verification, Twitter has an application process for gray ticks for government agencies/civil servants and golden checkmarks for businesses (which, in the end, could come at a high price).
