Twitter takes away legacy Blue ticks! SRK, Virat Kohli, Amitabh Bachchan, Rahul Gandhi, Pope, more lose verification

After months of debate following CEO Elon Musk’s announcement that legacy blue ticks will be disappearing, Twitter finally removed the verification for everyone who was not already subscribed to Twitter Blue yesterday, April 20. The move, which has received a generally negative response from the user base, came last night when several users tweeted about losing their verification mark. Many notable personalities, including the Pope, actor Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, cricketer Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, and political leaders such as UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Rahul Gandhi lost their verified status.

While talks around removing legacy verification have been going on ever since Musk took over Twitter, however, due to backlash, the process was delayed. On April 11, Musk tweeted saying, “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20”.

Twitter removes legacy Blue Ticks

Twitter introduced blue tick verification for the first time in 2009 with an aim to make celebrities, government officials and other notable personalities easily recognizable on the platform. Back then, users were not asked to pay for the verification and instead, it was done after an individual was able to prove their notable status in the real world. This also prevented fake accounts and parody accounts from being mistaken as the real person.

After Musk took over Twitter, he introduced Blue Ticks as a perk of subscribing to Twitter Blue, claiming that this would democratize Twitter. Later, it was announced that government organizations will receive a grey check mark and businesses will receive a golden check mark, which would not require any payment.

According to reports, Musk is also personally paying for three individuals’ Blue Tick verification. These are famed author Stephen King, basketball star LeBron James and Star Trek actor William Shatner, all of whom have complained about paying for the subscription service in past.