Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has brought many changes to the platform. Among them, the change of logo and name to a simple ‘X’ and payment verification stand out. The latter caused several users to lose their blue mark unless they paid for X Premium, but the company has decided to return it.
With the aim of encouraging Internet users to pay for those who subscribed to X Premium could benefit from it.
Almost a year after X ended free verification, the application has decided to add it back to some users without them subscribing. Last week Musk already warned that this would happen “in the future”, but we did not expect it to be so soon.
The tycoon detailed that accounts with more than 2,500 followers would get free Premium features, including the blue check. On the other hand, users with more than 5,000 followers will enjoy Premium+ for free.
The removal of legacy verification from the app was poorly received by some Twitter users. However, it seems that his return has not been received with open arms.
Complaints about the return of the free blue check
Elon Musk once defined Twitter’s legacy verification program as a “lord and peasant system.” The owner of the platform did not like that it rewarded users with the most followers with a blue mark to distinguish them from those who had the least.
As a solution, he proposed the questionable measure of making this feature one of the exclusives of Twitter Blue (now X Premium). For $8 a month, users could get verified regardless of the number of their followers. According to Musk, this democratized the selection (although some did not see it that way).
Now, the verified ones return to the large accounts. Some users seem to have begun to complain, far from being happy with this measure. The reason? They don’t want people to think they paid to be branded by Elon Musk.
“What about the random blue check that I didn’t ask for or pay for?” posted Katie Phang, with more than 300,000 followers.
Ellie Schnitt, with almost 557,000 followers, jokes about the ‘reinvention’ of verified: “OMG, I got a blue checkmark for being ‘influential’ on Twitter. They have simply reinvented the original blue check. I’m laughing a lot”.
How to remove the blue check from X
Luckily, those who want to delete verification on Elon Musk’s social network can do so easily. Although the blue check once had quite a bit of prestige, lately it has become for many a brand that informs Internet users that you are paying for X.
Although many view this exclusive feature favorably (especially those who pay for it), this is not the case for many others. For this reason, there is the possibility of eliminating it from the platform settings.
The option to hide the blue badge is found in the account customization section. That is, just enter the profile and click on ‘Edit profile’. Along with other options, such as changing the name, biography or photo, users can choose to remove the verification check.
