Elon Musk reinvented the blue checkmark Wednesday night, regressing to an old Twitter policy where anyone with a certain amount of status gets a check. Now, accounts with more than 2,500 verified subscriber followers automatically received a blue checkmark for free. Thousands of influential X users were devastated to find out they’d been marked with Elon’s stamp of approval, so they ran to X to clarify they did not pay for this.
omg they gave me a blue checkmark for being “influential” on twitter. they have simply reinvented the original blue check i’m laughing so hard pic.twitter.com/29EEHXWl39
— ellie schnitt (@holy_schnitt) April 4, 2024
“Yo, Elon, take this blue check and scratch your t***t with the long end of it,” said David Simon, creator of the award-winning TV show, The Wire. “Does anyone out there know how to turn this f****r off?”
“What happened? I didn’t pay for this. I would NEVER pay for this,” said one user.
“I didn’t ask for a blue check,” said another. “I need to make this abundantly clear.”
The revival of free blue checkmarks comes over a year after Musk started asking users to pay for verification services in 2022. Users with less than 2,500 followers can still pay for premium features today, but it’ll cost you $8 a month and your dignity. As of Wednesday, X users with over 2,500 followers automatically get X Premium features, while users with over 5,000 followers get Premium Plus features.
Going forward, all 𝕏 accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2024
The blue checkmark’s reputation was tarnished when Musk made it a paid feature. While Twitter’s verification used to be a status symbol, it quickly became a mark that you were writing Musk a monthly check for increased reach. That has, potentially, forever changed the internet’s association with the blue checkmark, so many popular users are racing to remove it.
“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit,” Musk said in 2022 when he made people start paying for verification. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
Users can still turn the blue checkmark off by simply navigating to the “profile customization” page within X’s settings. You’ll still get all those free features without any of the embarrassment.
This decision puts influential X users in an odd predicament. For one, some popular X users have been paying for premium features for the last two years. Now, they’re supposed to stop paying, simply because Elon decided this experiment wasn’t working out. Not to mention, the blue checkmark may not be the gift it once was.
So why the change? The free blue checkmarks and premium features could be a sign Musk is looking to increase engagement on X. Drastically more users will get access to features such as longer posts, bookmark folders, Musk’s AI chatbot Grok, and access to an ad revenue sharing program. It’s unclear exactly why Musk is reversing his stance on verification, but it’s the latest unexplained policy reversal on the confusing hellscape of X.