Twitter reinstates ‘legacy’ verified blue badges to accounts with 1 million+ followers

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.

Before Elon Musk’s turbulent acquisition of Twitter, blue verification badges symbolised accounts that had provided information to verify they were genuine and represented the company or individual they claimed they did.

However, as part of Musk’s rampant effort to monetise the platform after his $44 billion buyout, Twitter is now allowing any user worldwide to subscribe and pay to show the platform’s blue verification checkmark on their profile, as well as access other paywalled features including the ability to post higher-resolution 1080p videos, share longer tweets, Edit Tweet and Undo Tweet options, and more.

Twitter had removed the blue badge from all non-paying accounts earlier this week, forcing users who had lost their badge to subscribe to Twitter Blue however, data revealed that in the hours after the platform started to remove the iconic blue verification badge, only 28 out of the 407,000 ‘legacy’ verified accounts had subscribed to the pay-monthly Twitter Blue subscription to keep their blue checkmark.