Twitter Starts Removing Blue Ticks: How Much It Will Cost Users To ‘Verify’ Now

Elon Musk had earlier warned that non-paying users will lose their blue verification ticks, and it appears that Twitter has finally started doing the same.

Twitter has finally started removing ‘legacy’ blue ticks from users who are yet to pay for Twitter Blue plans. CEO Elon Musk on April 12 tweeted that all the users who are yet to pay up will lose their verified blue badges starting April 20, and it appears that the microblogging platform has finally started to remove blue badges. Twitter Blue is currently available worldwide at $7 a month if they sign up via a Web browser. If you are using Twitter on iOS or Android, you will have to pay $11 via in-app payment. 

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. Meanwhile, verified Twitter accounts are now showing this message: "this account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number."

Users who lost their blue ticks took to Twitter to voice their reactions, including Tom Warren, Senior Editor at The Verge and Raspberry Pi, makers of inexpensive, small computers for home, industry and education. 

Renowned Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar also lost their blue verified ticks and so did Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, to name a few.  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.  

Apart from keeping their blue checkmarks, Twitter Blue subscribers can also access handy perks such as prioritised ranking in conversations, half the number of advertisements, long-form tweets, bookmarking folders, custom navigation, editing tweets, undoing tweets, and more.

Musk had previously stated that the firm will eliminate all blue checks as it focuses on monetising its platform by charging users. Twitter Blue users will also see 50 per cent fewer advertisements in their home timelines, and companies and brands can apply for a gold checkmark.