Twitter to Do Away With the Classic “Blue Tick”

In a tweet by Twitter Verified, the social media giant confirmed that it would start taking down its legacy blue tick following 1st April 2023. Recently accounts with the legacy Blue tick have been seeing a pop-up reading, “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”

Elon Musk hinted in December that Twitter is working on a plan to do away with these blue ticks. And with the recent announcement, the plan has finally come into action.

Twitter has instead rolled out a “Twitter Blue” subscription for $8 a month, which comes with fewer ads, the ability to undo and edit tweets, prioritized ranking, and of course, the blue tick.

In simple words, the blue ticks will no longer be handed out for free based on the account’s stature. Instead, anyone who pays $8 a month can have the tick next to their Twitter name handle.

With the legacy tick retiring, accounts with a blue tick are only the ones that have purchased it.

Earlier, the blue tick meant two things. The tick could have been a legacy one, handed over by Twitter during the pre-Elon era. On the other hand, it could also have been a purchased one.

The decisions around the blue tick revolve around Musk’s decision to boost Twitter’s revenue. He has set a target of total subscription revenue of as much as 50% of Twitter’s current revenue. Going by the numbers, this would require Twitter to make $196.66 million per month, translating to 24.6 million paying subscribers. This, in all probability, looks like a steep task with Twitter Blue.

Other Twitter Ticks

Along with the blue tick, Twitter had introduced several other verification ticks to distinguish between accounts.

The gold tick represents an account that belongs to a business or an organization. This is a part of Twitter’s “Blue for Business” plan. Companies that have subscribed to the plan can link any number of Twitter accounts to their brand. Companies can also allot square logos to individuals to distinguish their accounts from the rest.

The Grey tick mark applies to “some other public figures”, such as journalists, politicians, and the like. For example, Joe Biden (POTUS) currently dons the grey tick on Twitter.

Similarly, Twitter had also rolled out several badges for state-affiliated media, government accounts, US election candidates, and verified phone number badges.