In the first phase of the Twitter Blue initiative, blue verification checks were doled out to anyone on Twitter willing to pay for them. What was previously a de facto status symbol and way to verify that an account owner was who they say they were had become a symbol that someone had $8.
Seemingly overnight, Rudy Giuliani began to declare his bowel movements. McDonald’s shouted to the world that its meat was beyond expiration. And Chiquita, formerly the United Fruit Company — which played a central role in a regime change in Guatemala in the 1950s — announced it had overthrown Brazil.
None of this was true, of course.
Satiric and imposter accounts were taking advantage of the fact that, because of the new verification rules, it was now very easy to spread misinformation. So much false information spread as a result of the product launch, in fact, that Musk initially paused its rollout. The impersonation mostly calmed after a week as the novelty of the joke died and Twitter started cracking down on offenders.
But on April 20, a similarly chaotic move played out when Elon Musk continued the rollout of Twitter Blue and began stripping legacy verified users — who gained verification mostly by achieving minor or major prominence in their respective fields — of their check marks.
Immediately after the move Twitter users began justifying their blue checks. (Some are subscribed to Twitter Blue to expand their reach or upload longer videos to Twitter.) During the first phase of Twitter Blue’s rollout it was ambiguous whether a verified user had achieved some level of notability or was paying for it; now anyone seen with a blue check was certainly paying for it.
The New York Times ran a story that asked, “Are blue checks uncool now?” CBS News published an article that drew attention to dead celebrities receiving verification check marks and impersonators jumping in.
The accounts of Beyoncé, Lebron James and Chrissy Tegan were stripped of their check marks. Many of the most famous celebrity accounts, including those listed, promptly had their checks returned. But the majority of legacy verified accounts remain unverified.
“Celebrities and top accounts are now noting that their accounts, too, bear the Twitter Blue check mark, even though they aren't paying for it, such as author Neil Gaiman, actor Ron Perlman, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” wrote Aimee Picchi of CBS News.
A popular meme making fun of those who pay perhaps exemplifies the minor cultural battle playing out between the anti- and pro-Musk sides of the Twitter verification debate:
(Twitter)
One legacy verified user was reportedly “annoyed when his blue check mysteriously reappeared, because he was worried that his followers would think he had paid for Twitter Blue,” according to the Times.
“Having a blue tick now means there’s a higher chance that you're a complete loser and that you're desperate for validation from famous people,” tweeted the rapper Doja Cat. |
