Twitter has restricted its Verified notifications feed, which showed users likes, mentions, retweets, and more from other users who were either ‘legacy’ verified or subscribed to Twitter Blue, making the notifications tab accessible only for paying Twitter users.
The new Verified notifications feed paywall gives non-paying Twitter users access to the general All notifications tab and Mentions tab, restoring the notifications options to how they were prior to Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, before the Verified notifications tab was made available to all users and not just ‘legacy’ verified users that received the checkmark before Twitter was sold.
As part of the update, days after removing the iconic blue verification badge from ‘legacy’ verified accounts that received the checkmark prior to Musk’s takeover of the platform last year, Twitter has now partially backtracked and reinstated verified blue badges to some high-profile accounts with over 1 million followers, allowing the accounts to keep their checkmark without subscribing to the pay-monthly Twitter Blue subscription service.
After purging ‘legacy’ verified badges on Thursday, Twitter on Sunday brought the verification checkmark to accounts belonging to some high-profile celebrities and brands, a step back from Musk’s statement in March in which he said “It’s more about treating everyone equally. There shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities,” when justifying his move to charge for the blue badge.