[Global] Twitter’s highest-profile accounts have their blue ticks restored

Following the headline-grabbing removal of blue ticks across the board, Twitter accounts with more than one million followers have quietly had their blue tick badges reinstated by Twitter without the account holders paying the controversial subscription fee, BBC News reports.

Those to unexpectedly see their blue tick reappear include Beyoncé, Neil Gaiman and Sir Ian McKellan.

The BBC News Twitter account also reportedly has its gold badge again yet it has not paid for it.

Prior to Elon Musk’s purchases of the social media platform, the blue tick was a badge of verification given for free by Twitter as a tool of authentication to limit fake accounts and the spread of misinformation.

Now it is a signal that an account has subscribed to a premium service called Twitter Blue and completed the verification process associated with making the payment. There are various price levels which depend on where the subscription is made but the charge is around $8 per month.

Those with an existing blue tick from the original verification process who opted not to pay the subscription fee began losing their ticks on April 20.

The broadcaster James O'Brien has 1.1m followers and is among those to now have their blue tick back after losing it. He confirmed that he had not paid for his account.

Mr O’Brien also reportedly noted that some accounts with fewer than 1m followers also appeared to have had their blue ticks restored, "anointed entirely at Elon Musk's discretion".

Eliot Higgins - founder of investigations organisation Bellingcat - confirmed to BBC News on April 21 that his blue tick and Bellingcat's verification had been given to him for free.

Mr Musk has recently claimed that he paid himself for the subscriptions himself of author Stephen King, actor William Shatner and basketball player Lebron James. All were publicly critical of the scheme.

Other celebrities still have no blue tick, including actor and Wrexham football club owner Ryan Reynolds despite his more than 21m followers.

It was earlier reported that the legacy blue tick removals had to be carried out manually so it is possible that their return is also a manual process which will continue over the coming days.

Twitter Blue’s launch has been plagued with problems. It was initially delayed in the wake of a wave of fake accounts pretending to be official organisations and then, in recent weeks, subscribers and formerly verified accounts have both looked the same.

Subscribers' perks reportedly include tweets with higher visibility, a greater character count for individual posts and fewer ads.

Mr Musk has previously said that Twitter's finances were in dire straits when he took over and that the popular microblogging platform was operating at a loss of $4m per day.

Twitter has not disclosed how many people have chosen to subscribe to date. The app firm Sensor Tower gave TechCrunch an estimate that the platform had around 386,000 subscribers in March 2023.

This reportedly doesn’t include subscriptions made on Twitter's website rather than within its app, regardless, it is a very small fraction of its roughly 300 million user base.

Source: BBC News

(Link and quote via original reporting)

Following the headline-grabbing removal of blue ticks across the board, Twitter accounts with more than one million followers have quietly had their blue tick badges reinstated by Twitter without the account holders paying the controversial subscription fee, BBC News reports.

Those to unexpectedly see their blue tick reappear include Beyoncé, Neil Gaiman and Sir Ian McKellan.

The BBC News Twitter account also reportedly has its gold badge again yet it has not paid for it.

Prior to Elon Musk’s purchases of the social media platform, the blue tick was a badge of verification given for free by Twitter as a tool of authentication to limit fake accounts and the spread of misinformation.

Now it is a signal that an account has subscribed to a premium service called Twitter Blue and completed the verification process associated with making the payment. There are various price levels which depend on where the subscription is made but the charge is around $8 per month.

Those with an existing blue tick from the original verification process who opted not to pay the subscription fee began losing their ticks on April 20.

The broadcaster James O'Brien has 1.1m followers and is among those to now have their blue tick back after losing it. He confirmed that he had not paid for his account.

Mr O’Brien also reportedly noted that some accounts with fewer than 1m followers also appeared to have had their blue ticks restored, "anointed entirely at Elon Musk's discretion".

Eliot Higgins - founder of investigations organisation Bellingcat - confirmed to BBC News on April 21 that his blue tick and Bellingcat's verification had been given to him for free.

Mr Musk has recently claimed that he paid himself for the subscriptions himself of author Stephen King, actor William Shatner and basketball player Lebron James. All were publicly critical of the scheme.

Other celebrities still have no blue tick, including actor and Wrexham football club owner Ryan Reynolds despite his more than 21m followers.

It was earlier reported that the legacy blue tick removals had to be carried out manually so it is possible that their return is also a manual process which will continue over the coming days.

Twitter Blue’s launch has been plagued with problems. It was initially delayed in the wake of a wave of fake accounts pretending to be official organisations and then, in recent weeks, subscribers and formerly verified accounts have both looked the same.

Subscribers' perks reportedly include tweets with higher visibility, a greater character count for individual posts and fewer ads.

Mr Musk has previously said that Twitter's finances were in dire straits when he took over and that the popular microblogging platform was operating at a loss of $4m per day.

Twitter has not disclosed how many people have chosen to subscribe to date. The app firm Sensor Tower gave TechCrunch an estimate that the platform had around 386,000 subscribers in March 2023.

This reportedly doesn’t include subscriptions made on Twitter's website rather than within its app, regardless, it is a very small fraction of its roughly 300 million user base.

Source: BBC News

(Link and quote via original reporting)