Twitter Inc.’s blue ticks were reinstated on some media outlets, celebrities and other high-profile accounts on Saturday – a move many of the recipients protested.
Once a free token of authenticity and fame, subscribers now have to buy blue ticks for $8 a month, Twitter says.
Non-paying accounts that had a blue tick lost it Thursday as Twitter CEO Elon Musk implemented a strategy announced last year called “Twitter Blue” to generate new revenue.
Photo: Reuters
Only a tiny fraction of users with blue ticks are subscribed — less than 5 percent of the 407,000 affected profiles, said Travis Brown, a Berlin-based software developer who tracks social media platforms.
On Friday and Saturday, however, a number of celebrities got their blue ticks back, seemingly through no fault of their own, including author Stephen King, basketball star LeBron James and former US President Donald Trump.
Musk wrote on Twitter on Friday that he was “paying for a couple [subscriptions] personal.”
US rapper Lil Nas X, whose profile shows the blue tick, wrote: “By my soul I didn’t pay for twitter blue you’ll feel my wrath Tesla man!”
The accounts of some dead celebrities, such as US chef Anthony Bourdain, also received a blue tick.
Many official media accounts have been re-ticked, including Agence France-Presse, which has not subscribed to Twitter Blue.
The New York Times got its gold badge back this month after Musk slammed the news organization as “propaganda.”
The newspaper is among major media outlets to reserve a gold tick for an “official business account” that pays at least $1,000 a month.
The reinstated ticks did not lure back US public broadcaster National Public Radio and Canadian Broadcasting Corp, which recently halted activity on their accounts and had not resumed tweeting since yesterday.
The broadcasters were among those protesting the “state-affiliated” and “state-funded” labels attached to them, previously reserved for state media funded by autocratic governments.
Twitter removed those labels on Friday, including those of the Xinhua news agency and Russia Today TV channel.
Many who involuntarily received blue ticks made it clear they hadn’t opted in, as the badge became a symbol of support for Musk.
“No means no guys,” tech journalist Kara Swisher wrote Saturday, saying she got the blue tick without her consent.
“Knowledgeable people need to know: does Elon love me for me or for my 1.49 million followers?” she added, two hours after saying she wouldn’t pay “$8/month for Blue Check and Meh Features.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also awarded a blue tick, wrote on Saturday: “We are not subscribed to Twitter Blue.”
Economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who poked fun at Musk last July for saying he had “poor impulse control,” said Saturday, “So my blue tick came back. I had nothing to do with it and am definitely not paying.”
Musk, who owns Twitter, Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. responded with an image of a baby slathered in tomato sauce, crying over his plate of pasta and wearing a bib with a blue check mark over it.
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