Elon Musk made an announcement Friday morning that could make Twitter users with legacy blue checks feel blue: He wants to take away the social media status symbol.

The Twitter CEO made the declaration after a user with a blue check mark complained that the recent addition of Twitter Blue, the subscription service that bestows a blue check on anyone willing to pay $8 a month, has taken away “the charm” of “the blue tick verification.”

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..

— Ria (@RiaRevealed) February 10, 2023

Musk responded that, contrary to this user’s actual sentiments, he plans to remove all legacy blue checks soon, claiming without evidence that “those are the ones that are truly corrupt.”

Legacy blue checks will be removed soon. Those are the ones that are truly corrupt.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2023

Twitter began offering verified blue checks to prominent people in 2009 after Kanye West and Shaquille O’Neal complained about other accounts impersonating them on the platform.

In 2013, Twitter said the check marks helped users “discover high-quality sources of information and trust that a legitimate source is authoring the account’s Tweets.” (As a writer for HuffPost, this author has such a check mark on his own Twitter page.)

Blue checks were previously handed out free based on prominence, but since Musk aspires (and badly needs) to increase the company’s revenue, he began charging for blue checks last year, making them available to anyone willing to pay up (before removing that option, then relaunching it).

Following Musk’s latest announcement, many Twitter users have speculated that his plan to get rid of legacy blue checks will have undesirable consequences:

If the problem is bots and fakes, the way to handle that is by requiring ID verification for a blue check. That’s what Twitter did with me and it should be available to everyone. But removing all legacy blue checks and giving checks to unverified people who pay $8 solves nothing.

— Mark R. Yzaguirre (@markyzaguirre) February 10, 2023

How you will find out that who is corrupt?

— Divya Gandotra Tandon (@divya_gandotra) February 10, 2023

Exactly.. He means to say ppl who are public figures and who have accomplished so much in their life are corrupt..
Ridiculous @elonmusk

— Ria (@RiaRevealed) February 10, 2023

Sure, I guess having been published multiple times by a variety of outlets, providing those links, and being able to prove my identity with a driver’s license — the steps I took to be verified in 2015 — make me “corrupt”

— Stefanie Iris Weiss (@EcoSexuality) February 10, 2023

Have you considered the reason many people use Twitter is to get news or be entertained from the people that you claim are all corrupt?

— David Leavitt (@David_Leavitt) February 10, 2023

You mean the ones that provide the free content that makes this site popular? Without “legacy blue checks” Twitter becomes NextDoor, but less relevant.

— Robert Lusetich (@RobertLusetich) February 10, 2023

Jenna Ellis, a onetime lawyer to former President Donald Trump, wondered what will happen to prominent people who also shelled out money for Twitter Blue.

What if we are legacy and also subscribed to Blue? No interruptions to blue check?

— Jenna Ellis 🇺🇸 (@JennaEllisEsq) February 10, 2023

But one guy was pretty sure he understood what Musk was really saying.

So legacy blue checks are “truly corrupt” by definition? I see. But for eight bucks a month I won’t be corrupt anymore? Got it.

— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) February 10, 2023

Tags: elon musk social media twitter