Twitter to remove legacy blue ticks starting today, as Elon Musk's '4/20' deadline arrives

Twitter CEO Elon Musk recently announced that all the legacy blue checks will be removed starting April 20. Before this, Musk had announced that users will start losing their legacy verification badges starting April 1. The only users who will have the blue checkmark will be the ones who subscribe to the Twitter Blue subscription.

Twitter has already removed the New York Times account's blue checkmark.

On April 11, Musk tweeted, “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20”

Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 11, 2023

Earlier this month, the Twitter Verified account unfollowed everyone on Twitter, hinting at the removal of blue checkmarks on the platform. Until now, the Twitter Verified account followed all the verified accounts on the platform. 

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The problem with removing legacy blue checks on Twitter 

Earlier, it was reported by The Washington Post that the microblogging platform could not remove all the legacy blue ticks because the process is largely manual and there wasn’t enough man force. Notably, in a recent interview with BBC, Musk revealed that there were 8,000 employees on Twitter when he bought the company. Currently, the staff has been cut down to 1,500 only.

Why Elon Musk wants to remove legacy blue ticks 

According to Musk, he wants to remove legacy blue checkmarks because ‘the way in which they were given out was corrupt and nonsensical.’

To get the blue checkmark on Twitter now, users in India have to pay Rs 9,400 a year (or Rs 900 a month) for a Twitter Blue subscription.

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Twitter Blue offers users several new features such as the blue check mark, the ability to edit tweets, longer video posts, organized bookmarks, custom app icons, and the option to use an NFT as a profile picture.

Tomorrow, 4/20, we are removing legacy verified checkmarks. To remain verified on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://t.co/gzpCcwOXAX

Organizations can sign up for Verified Organizations here: https://t.co/YtPVNYypHU

— Twitter Verified (@verified) April 19, 2023

Notably, Twitter is planning to waive the $1,000 monthly fee for its verification program for the top 500 advertisers and the top 10,000 organisations based on their follower count.

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