Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has started removing blue ticks of verified handles on Twitter.
This came as a result of failure to pay the $8 monthly subscription fee which Musk has previously talked about. However, he has earlier stated that checkmarks of verified accounts that refuse to pay the fee will be removed.
The company in a statement on Twitter said, “We are removing legacy verified checkmarks. To remain verified on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue.”
A check mark had for years meant that Twitter had verified the identity of the user behind an account, and the icon was considered something of a status symbol.
A Thursday survey carried out by BusinessDay shows that celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber and Bill Gates are no longer being verified on Twitter.
However, the rollout of the removal has been months in the making since Musk disclosed in November that Twitter needed to become more profitable.
Initially, the Twitter CEO proposed charging $20 monthly for verification, but he lowered the price after a massive disagreement by Twitter users.
Meanwhile, the removal of the verified checkmarks came on the same day with Musk’s SpaceX launch which saw the rocket explode shortly after lift off.
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Commenting on the launch of the SpaceX, launch tweeted,”Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship.
Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months.”
In October 2022, Musk acquired the microblogging platform after completing his $44 billion deal.
Since the acquisition of the Microblogging platform, Musk has remained controversial as he has also sacked many employees of the platform
