San Francisco.- Twitter Inc. yesterday began removing blue checkmarks from user profiles, with celebrities including Pope Francis, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo losing their status. of verified.
But Twitter’s move is once again sowing confusion about who is real and who isn’t on the social media platform, The Wall Street noted.
The newspaper said the removal of the check mark is one of the most drastic changes new Twitter owner Elon Musk has made since he bought the platform in October. He has said for months that he wanted users to pay a monthly fee to get verified.
The move immediately generated uncertainty. A user attempted to impersonate New York City Government after the City Government account @nycgov tweeted yesterday that it was a genuine account. The user responded with an impersonator handle, @NYC_GOVERNMENT, saying, “No, you’re not.” The phishing account was suspended this morning.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment from The Wall Street Journal beyond an automated emoji response.
Under the ownership of Elon Musk, Twitter has changed the way it awards the coveted blue checkmarks, which were previously awarded to prominent individuals, journalists, executives, politicians and establishments after verifying their identities. They served as a mark of authenticity.
Musk said in November that Twitter would start charging $8 a month for the badge in an effort to launch more revenue streams beyond advertising. Later, the company offered check marks in other colors: gold for companies and gray for government and multilateral agencies and officials.
The Pope, who lost his blue badge yesterday, later received Twitter’s gray checkmark.
The Vatican, caught off guard, said in a statement that it was aware Twitter was making changes, but noted that the pope had more than 53 million followers on his multilingual @Pontifex accounts.
“Pending to know the new policies of the platform, the Holy See hopes that they include the certification of the authenticity of the accounts,” he said.
Some personalities such as basketball star LeBron James and writer Stephen King continued to have their blue markings, apparently courtesy of Musk himself.
Among those losing their badges were former US President Donald Trump and star Kim Kardashian.
Twitter also today removed the “government-funded” label from accounts of the US-based National Public Radio (NPR), the British Broadcasting Corp and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) public broadcaster.
