Late Thursday afternoon, Twitter began removing the blue checks — the symbols that denote profiles that have been verified on the platform — from all profiles that had obtained them based on the criteria in place before Elon Musk bought the company in end of October. Previously, the blue ticks were designed to verify the authenticity of the profiles of institutions, companies, famous or otherwise relevant personalities. However, Musk had announced that from the beginning of April Twitter would begin to remove all the old blue checks, keeping them only for those who decide to subscribe to Blue, the paid version of the social network.
Now the blue ticks have disappeared not only from the accounts of many journalists, but also from those of some of the best known and most followed personalities on social networks, including Pope Francis, Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. In some cases, the blue check has disappeared and then reappeared, and not all profiles verified according to the previous rules have lost it.
The choice is likely to create a big stir on Twitter in the coming days, increasing the risk that malicious users will pay 8 euros – the monthly cost of a Twitter Blue subscription – to pretend to be one of the celebrities who have lost the blue check.