The blue ticks on Twitter have long been a kind of status symbol: they adorn the accounts of the famous or notorious, politicians or influencers. Most importantly, they have verified that the people behind these accounts are who they say they are.
But with hours before Twitter plans to remove those verification ticks en masse Saturday — and only hand them out to those paying $8 a month or $84 a year for a Twitter Blue subscription — entertainers, pro athletes are appearing and content producers in no rush to sign up, with some strongly opposed and others waiting.
Twitter’s announcement of the change was met with derision from several Blue Check verified users.
Lakers star LeBron James and NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes both tweeted Friday morning that they would not be signing up.
“Guess my blue will be gone soon because if you know me I ain’t paying the 5,” James tweeted.
“Some users on Twitter started mistaking me for someone who pays $8 a month to feel special. It was embarrassing,” tweeted television writer and comedian Mike Drucker.
While celebrities have already departed from the platform or reduced their activity in recent years, it’s likely that changing paid verification will speed up the process.
Media and entertainment professionals who work with celebrities on their social media presences have expressed reluctance to pay to have their companies or clients screened, but have been wary of discussing the matter publicly, citing Chief Executive Elon’s story Musk to retaliate against critics, including Twitter’s business partners. (When a number of major advertisers halted spending in November over concerns about hate speech and other issues, Musk threatened a “thermonuclear name and disgrace.”)
A Los Angeles media executive whose portfolio includes celebrities and entertainment brands expressed reservations about the “look of getting a blue check,” referring to the way Musk’s Kulturkampf antics have polarized sentiment on Twitter.
Guess my blue ✔️ will be gone soon because if you know me I won’t pay the 5th 🤷🏾♂️
— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 31, 2023
The executive, who did not have permission from her company to speak publicly, also expressed concern about the lack of ability to speak to support staff at Twitter about the change.
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Another source, who frequently speaks to celebrities and media outlets about social strategy, reported “hearing from a number of talent teams that they feel like they’re being blackmailed and aren’t doing it.”
Musk also announced that starting April 15, only accounts subscribing to Twitter Blue will be eligible to be promoted in users’ For You recommendations. Voting in polls will also only be available to paid users, he said. Musk later added that For You will also feature tweets from accounts he follows, including unconfirmed ones.
However, many questions about the upcoming changes remain unanswered, e.g. B. how retweets will be handled in algorithmic advertising and how the company will prevent the proliferation of scammer accounts.
Twitter’s press email responded to a request for comment with an auto-reply of a poop emoji.
Some celebrities have publicly stated their intention not to pay for Twitter Blue or raised concerns about possible identity theft.
“Star Trek” actor William Shatner, who has 2.5 million followers and is a longtime active Twitter user, said in a tweet that “blue [checks] were guard rails for legitimacy; no meaningless status symbols.”
Jason Alexander of “Seinfeld” tweeted Monday that he would leave Twitter if his tick was removed because without it “everyone can pretend to be me,” he wrote.
In an example of impersonation still taking place, Monica Lewinsky tweeted about a user with the handle “monicalewinskai” who was verified as Monica Lewinsky with a blue tick.
Karl Urban of Amazon Prime’s The Boys said he was “against spending money on social media” and warned his followers about scammers and scammers in a tweet.
Twitter introduced verified accounts in 2009 after the company was sued over a fake account. When the blue tick was first made available to paying users in November, the platform was inundated with users posing as public figures such as LeBron James and George W. Bush.
According to one researcher’s estimate, just 475,000, or 0.2% of Twitter’s daily active users are paid subscribers, and about half have fewer than 1,000 followers, Mashable reported.
The company has listed some requirements for Twitter Blue status, such as: Details on how the company will enforce these requirements have not been released.
Several news organizations that have become heavy users of the platform in recent years have also stated that they will not pay for the Twitter blue tick just yet.
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Buzzfeed, Politico, Vox Media and the Washington Post have all said they would not pay their organizations or their reporters for Twitter verification, with the New York Times adding: ” except in rare instances where verified status would be essential for reporting purposes,” said CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy.
Organizations are charged $1,000 per month for access to Twitter Blue as a verified organization and $50 per affiliate account that can be added for individual users in that organization to become verified.
According to the New York Times, Twitter will make exceptions for its top 500 advertisers and for the top 10,000 previously verified organizations with the most followers.
Wendy Lee, a Times contributor, contributed to this report.
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