Elon Musk has re-instated Twitter blue tick for account with over a million followers, without paying to subscribe.
Before the platform was bought by Elon Musk, the Twitter blue tick was a badge of verification given for free by Twitter.
It was originally used as a tool of authentication, designed to help stop fake accounts and the spread of misinformation.
Now it is a symbol that an account has subscribed to a premium service called Twitter Blue – and there is a verification process attached with making the payment. There are various prices depending on where the subscription is made but it is around $8 per month.
Those with a Twitter blue tick from the original verification process, who decided not to pay the subscription fee, began losing their ticks on 20 April.
It was reported that the removal of the legacy blue ticks had to be done manually so it is possible that this is also a manual process which will continue over the coming days.
Twitter Blue has had a troubled launch. It was initially delayed after fake accounts sprung up pretending to be official organisations, and in recent weeks both subscribers and formerly verified accounts have looked the same.
Subscribers’ tweets have higher visibility, individual posts can be longer, and they will see fewer ads.
Elon Musk has previously said that the firm’s finances were in dire straits when he took over and that Twitter was operating at a loss of $4m per day.
Twitter has not revealed how many people have chosen to subscribe so far but the app firm Sensor Tower estimated to TechCrunch that the platform had around 386,000 subscribers in March 2023.
This does not include subscriptions made on Twitter’s website rather than within its app but is still a small fraction of its roughly 300 million user-base.