Twitter icon The blue checkmark starts to disappear This week is when the company fully migrated to its new subscription service called Twitter Blue. Now, users have to pay $8 a month for their verification, but the three celebrities were able to keep those checks without cashing them — because Musk says he’s paying for them.
On Thursday, writer Stephen King noticed that his account still had a check mark, despite a promise from Twitter that all check marks would be removed if users did not pay for the subscription.
“My Twitter account says I subscribed to Twitter Blue. I didn’t. My Twitter account said I provided a phone number. I didn’t,” King tweeted.
Kasturi replied to his tweet: “You’re welcome Namaste.”
She is not the only celebrity who has kept a check without subscribing. Last month, LeBron James announced that he would not cash the check. But this week, it remained and Musk claimed it was his doing.
Pop culture site Pop Base tweeted that Musk is personally paying for some celebrities’ Twitter Blue subscriptions. He replied: “Just Shatner, LeBron and King.”
Just Shatner, LeBron and King
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2023
In an earlier tweet, Shatner told Musk that he accepted the blue check. Kasturi went on a tweeting spree on Thursday but did not elaborate on why she chose the three celebrities to hold their blue checks.
Many high-profile Twitter pages that were once verified, no longer exist after many refused to pay for them Twitter Blue Subscription. The subscription allows users to write and edit longer tweets.
Avid Twitter user Dionne Warwick called the new verification system an “absolute mess”. He joked that the $8 would go toward his “extra hot lattes” instead
Some celebrities like Taylor Swift and Rihanna seem to have paid for the checkmark.
Chrissy Teigen joked about her and husband John Legend losing checks. “Going to bed tonight with my checkmark husband knowing it will all be over by morning,” she tweeted.
Ice-T indicated that he would not pay for the blue checkmark and had until Friday morning.
Twitter has begun labeling some organizations’ Twitter pages: a gold check for official businesses or corporations, gray for government agencies and officials, an affiliation badge for accounts linked to an organization on Twitter, and a badge for state-run media organizations and individuals who are part of the entity. .
But many companies like NPR say they’ve been mislabeled as government-funded or state-affiliated (NPR is a publicly-funded media organization), companies starting Take off those badges.
President Joe Biden and other government officials have an automatic gray check “because it’s a government or multilateral agency account,” Twitter explained. Companies like Musks’ SpaceX have a golden check because they’re official organizations on Twitter.
Blue checks go to people who have “subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number,” Twitter says. That is, unless you’re Shatner, James or King.
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Caitlin O’Kane
