Legacy Twitter blue checks to be removed soon: Elon Musk

Responding to a tweet from a user, Musk said the legacy Blue checks will be removed soon.

“Dear @elonmusk, the blue verification mark is now become a joke. Earlier the blue tick verification was only given to ppl who were public figures and political figures but sadly today any Tom Dick n Harry gets verified. Ur verification tick has lost the charm,” tweeted an user going by the handle Ria.

To this, Musk responded by saying, “Legacy blue checks will be removed soon. Those are the ones that are truly corrupt.”

Musk’s statement comes at a time when Twitter has been experimenting with making Twitter Blue a paid subscription as one of the measures to help stem the revenue fall at the company.

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Recently, the world’s largest microblogging platform launched the paid subscription for Twitter Blue in India, Brazil and Thailand. However, it did not get quite the response in India as it would have expected.In India, the service is available for a monthly fee of Rs 650 on the web and Rs 900 on mobile devices. The microblogging platform also offers a discounted annual plan of Rs 6,800 per year, which comes to Rs 566.67 per month.

Twitter Blue’s monthly cost is higher than Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music and several other global services which are generally available for cheaper in such markets to factor in the nations’ low GDPs.

Under Musk, Twitter Blue gives users access to additional features such as the blue check mark and the ability to edit a tweet, post longer videos, organise bookmarks, customise the app icon and put an Non-fungible token (NFT) as the profile picture.

Krupesh Bhat, founder of fintech firm SignDesk, said the charges seemed excessive despite its new features.

“With a monthly budget equal to Twitter Blue’s charges, an Indian could buy two OTT subscriptions and still have money to spare for the month’s electricity bill,” he said. “I don’t see this pricing making sense to too many individual users.”

But the new features were “too good to pass up” from a branding and marketability standpoint, and most Twitter Blue users from India were likely to be organisations and public figures, he said.