Elon Musk’s Twitter strips blue checks from public figures

“Widespread verification will democratize journalism & empower the voice of the people,” Musk tweeted Nov. 6.

Notable figures who had lost their badges included Pope Francis, former president Donald Trump, singers Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, and soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, the company’s former CEO, also appeared to have lost his check mark.

Many Twitter users reported their verification marks were disappearing and reappearing Thursday afternoon, before most appeared permanently deleted. Already, some users were changing their display names and profile pictures to match those of prominent politicians and celebrities — demonstrating how easily the new policies can be exploited.

Former employees previously told The Washington Post removal of the blue badges could prove difficult because of Twitter’s faulty internal tools, including an unreliable system where workers typically needed to remove the badges by hand to avoid problems. Some users reported glitches Thursday after their check marks were removed, though there did not appear to be signs of any widespread outages associated with previous changes to the site.

For users subscribed to Twitter Blue, Twitter updated its language explaining the purpose of the badge, so it read: “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”

Twitter said Wednesday it was moving forward with the plans roughly 20 days later than initially promised. Musk, who bought the company in October for $54.20 per share, first said that the move would start taking place on April Fools’ Day, although ultimately the only high-profile account to initially lose the check mark signifying its authenticity was the New York Times.

In a tweet last week, Musk updated the timing to Thursday, which is 4/20, a repeated theme from the billionaire — who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — thanks to its connection to cannabis culture. (Musk also famously tweeted he was taking Tesla private at the price of $420 per share, something he was later fined for.)

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The move will cap a busy week for Musk, who was also overseeing the attempted launch of SpaceX’s Starship on Thursday and spoke on Tesla’s earnings call Wednesday. The rocket exploded shortly after liftoff Thursday morning.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Twitter’s blue check mark was loved and loathed. Now it’s pay for play.

The decision has been controversial, with some cheering Musk’s move as a push for equality on the site, and others expressing concern that the change could make it more likely for impersonation accounts to proliferate and misinformation to spread. Twitter was forced to quickly roll back its first launch of subscription service Twitter Blue last year when impersonation accounts spread on the site.

Twitter said it would start “winding down” the legacy system and removing check marks April 1, but many accounts kept their verification past that date. Musk pushed for the New York Times to lose its badge after the publication said it would not pay for the subscription service.

Celebrities including legendary Star Trek actor William Shatner have complained about the decision.

“I want to stay on it but I want to be sure that it’s my voice, and my thoughts that people are hearing and reading, and not somebody who … wants to harm me in some way,” he previously told The Washington Post. Shatner will stay on Twitter without a check mark until he sees what “guardrails” the company introduces, he said.

Many government agencies received a gray check mark to designate them, but some smaller agencies or divisions have said they did not receive marks. A Washington state Department of Transportation account that tracks conditions at mountainous Snoqualmie Pass tweeted Wednesday that it “should have qualified for the grey check mark but were denied with no real explanation & little chance at an appeals process.”

It and others rushed to assure followers that they are still official accounts.

Many celebrities and journalists tweeted to their followers that they did not plan to pay for the check mark, which many said has lost its previous meaning and taken on a new connotation.

Some former employees have warned that a mass removal of verified accounts could break the site, The Post has reported.

Elon Musk has changed Twitter for his own benefit

Musk tweeted last month that “any individual person’s Twitter account affiliated with a verified organization is automatically verified.” Organizations could pay $1,000 a month to verify their accounts.

Musk has engineered major changes at Twitter since he took over in a $44 billion deal in October, including cutting the majority of the staff, firing several executives and reinstating some previously banned accounts.

The dramatic changes have caused many accounts, including celebrities and government agencies, to question the usefulness of Twitter.