Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday shared the final date for removing legacy blue ticks from the platform. The billionaire entrepreneur tweeted that 4/20, or April 20, is the final date before which all users still using legacy blue ticks will lose their verified badges unless they decide to pay for the revamped Twitter Blue service. The platform's blue tick verified badges, which were earlier offered for free to users after they passed an online vetting process, has been monetised ever since Musk took over the company in a hostile $44-billion bid last year.
As part of the revamped Twitter Blue service, subscribing users will automatically get the much-coveted blue tick without having to go through an elaborate verification procedure. Twitter Blue also offers additional perks such as editing tweets, bookmarking folders, and more. In India, Twitter Blue is priced at Rs 900 per month on iOS and Android, and Rs 650 on the Web client. Twitter offers a discounted yearly plan of Rs 6,500, which boils down to around Rs 566 per month.
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This is what Musk tweeted on Wednesday:
Now, while this clearly suggests that April 20 is the day when non-paying users will lose their previously verified blue ticks, followers of deep Musk lore will be able to spot a certain joke in his tweet.
For those unaware, 4/20 is celebrated as World Weed Day. Back in the 1970s, teenagers in California, US, had a ritual of smoking marijuana at 4:20 pm every day, as per Steven Hager, the former editor of High Times, a marijuana-focused news platform. Eventually, the date of 4/20, or April 20, has been largely accepted across the globe as a day to celebrate everything related to marijuana and the weed-smoking lifestyle.
Musk has been no stranger to marijuana, having infamously smoked the same on the popular podcast show, "The Joe Rogan Experience," back in 2018. Known to troll people online, Musk in April last year said that he proposed to buy Twitter shares at $54.20 each in his US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. Notice that not-so-subtle reference to '4/20' in the price? He also tweeted about selling his electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla's shares at $420 apiece.
Now, Musk is not known to hold back when it comes to trolls. He did recently replace Twitter's blue-bird logo with the 'doge' meme and also changed his own profile name to 'Harry Bōlz' for a brief spell. While these might not be the typical working style of a social media giant, Musk has a proven, eccentric way of handling business.
Musk had earlier said that April 1 (which is April Fool's Day) would be the last date before legacy verified blue ticks were removed from the platform. However, that is yet to happen. So, for now, it remains to be seen whether Twitter indeed removes all non-paying blue ticks on "4/20."