Twitter’s blue check apocalypse is here, and this is the full story

Okay, I’ll admit it: I did not expect the Twitter checkpocalypse to result in Dril accusing Elon Musk of violating federal consumer protection laws.

It’s been four days since Musk removed the last “legacy verified” checkmarks, leaving Twitter’s blue checks in the hands of people who pay $8 per month for Twitter Blue. Or, at least, that was the idea. As of Monday morning, here’s how it’s gone:

After chief twit Elon Musk made good on his promise to remove Twitter accounts’ legacy verification blue ticks last week, numerous high-profile accounts now appear to be re-verified — including a number of dead celebrities.

It’s likely that the re-appearance of their blue ticks is part of a wider (but unannounced) scheme by Twitter to restore verification to users with over one million followers. But hover over the blue ticks of the accounts of dead celebs, and Twitter will tell you they’re verified “because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”

Twitter has started getting rid of legacy blue checks for those who don’t pay up. Well, unless you’re LeBron James and a couple of other celebrities.

The Verge has confirmed that an employee at Twitter recently emailed James, who has previously said he wouldn’t pay for verification, to “extend a complimentary subscription to Twitter Blue for your account, @kingjames, on behalf of Elon Musk.”

Twitter reiterated today that it’s going to remove legacy verified checkmarks Thursday, April 20th. Yes, that does mean Elon Musk’s Twitter intends to remove the last vestiges of what he once deemed the “lords & peasants system” on 4/20, ha ha.

The thing is, I won’t believe Twitter until it actually happens. The company originally said that it would “begin” removing checkmarks on April 1st, but as far as I know, that hasn’t taken place. (Well, outside of Twitter removing The New York Times’ verified checkmark after the publication said it wouldn’t pay the reportedly high fees for organizational accounts, but it seems like Musk made sure that happened.)

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has stopped tweeting from its primary Twitter account after it was given a “government-funded media” label. As of this writing the @PBS account hasn’t tweeted since April 8th, and the organization has since confirmed that it currently has “no plans” to resume posting to Twitter. 

“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” PBS spokesman Jason Phelps tells Bloomberg. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.” While PBS isn’t tweeting from its main account, it’s continued to put out content on affiliated accounts like @NewsHour, which have not had the “government-funded” label applied.

NPR has announced that it will no longer use Twitter to distribute its content after the social media platform began labeling the network as “US state-affiliated media,” putting it in the same category as government mouthpiece publications like RT and China Daily. NPR is the first major news organization to pull from the platform and comes at a time when Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s relationship with the press is at a low point.

NPR’s main Twitter account has been silent since getting the label a week ago, but CEO John Lansing made the stance official in a memo sent to staffers Wednesday morning. “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” he wrote. 

Twitter users will need a “verified account” to get recommended on the platform’s For You page starting on April 15th, according to a Monday evening tweet from CEO Elon Musk.

Given that Twitter has promised to start dismantling the “legacy” verified system at the beginning of April, that appears to mean that you’ll have to be a company, government entity, or Twitter Blue subscriber if you want to pop into the feeds of people who don’t follow you. Musk clarified on Tuesday that accounts you already follow will show up in For You, too, “since you have explicitly asked for them.”

Twitter may be working on a feature that lets you hide the blue checkmark you got by paying for its Blue subscription. A screen found by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi shows that the company is working on a control panel for verification settings, with one of the options being “Show or hide your blue checkmark on your profile.”

This report should definitely be taken with a grain of salt, given that it appears to be an in-development feature that Twitter hasn’t announced (and that the company’s taking a long time to ship things it has said are coming). However, I can see why Twitter might want to add it. Depending on what part of the site you’re on, the blue verified checkmark can make you as much of a pariah as having an NFT profile picture. If a tweet from a Twitter Blue user goes viral, the comments are likely filled with memes about how “this mf paid for twitter,” and there are even tools to block everyone who has the subscription.