by
Stephen Chapman
Twitter has begun its “blue tick” cull, by removing the once sought-after ticks from verified accounts.
That means major figures like The Pope, Ronaldo, Jay-Z and Beyoncé have lost their verification. As has Prolific North.
In total there were around 300k verified Twitter users.
The decision to change the tick system was made by new owner, Elon Musk, as part of his plans to make Twitter profitable.
Want all the latest content from Prolific North delivered direct to your inbox daily? Of course you do!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2023
Users now have to pay $84 every year to retain a blue tick and subscribe to the new “Twitter Blue” service.
It has also introduced gold checkmark to show that an account is an official business account and grey to indicate “government/multilateral organization or a government/multilateral official.”
Musk acquired Twitter for $44bn last year, he recently told staff it was valued at $20bn. Earlier this month it became part of Musk’s X Corp.
Damn Elon what did u do lol
— Aymeric Laporte (@Laporte) April 20, 2023
Already lost it once, not scared of not having it anymore I'm not paying for this weird ideas lol
— Riyad Mahrez (@Mahrez22) April 20, 2023
