Twitter to Remove Legacy Verified Checks Because It Wants People to Pay for Them

The Twitter blue checkmark – what a weird thing it has become. Once used as a way to identify an account related to an organization, brand, government official, celebrity, news outlet, etc., the too online crowd has decided it means or should mean more. It’s super f*cking important to the goofiest crowd on the internet, and so that means the current Twitter ownership has made the situation involving the verified checkmark some sort of awkward too online status symbol that you must pay for.

I bring this up because Twitter announced today that their “legacy” verified program will come to a close on April 1. That means they will begin removing legacy verified checkmarks from accounts. A legacy verified checkmark is basically anyone who was previously given a checkmark on Twitter after either being identified by or applied to Twitter as a person/organization/account of importance that should be confirmed to the world as verified.

If someone wants to keep a blue checkmark, they can pay for Twitter Blue at $8 per month. If an organization wants to keep their checkmark, they can apply to be a Verified Organization and then tell Twitter how many accounts may be associated with that organization that will need to be verified as well. A Verified Organization will pay $1,000 per month, plus $50 for each affiliated account. Lmao.

What this means on a bigger level is that almost all of the accounts that are currently verified will just never be verified again. That’s OK I guess, although it could create some confusion going forward. I think for most of us, a verified blue checkmark meant we had found the official account associated with a brand or person or organization. For the weirdos, it obviously meant something else, and that’s too bad because they’ve now ruined a key piece of Twitter that made a whole lot of sense in the past. It now no longer does.

Since this means Droid Life, Tim, and I will all lose our checkmarks in the near future, just know that can find us at @droid_life, @timotato, and @iamkellex. We will absolutely not pay for this shit.