After launching its paid subscription service, Twitter Blue, which charges $8 (roughly Rs. 660) for a blue verification badge on the platform, X CEO Elon Musk has now introduced a new feature that allows users to hide the blue tick on their profile and posts.
The Option to Hide the Blue Checkmark
According to the Help page of Twitter, subscribers to Twitter Blue now have the option to hide their blue checkmark. This feature allows users to remove the checkmark from their profile and posts. It’s important to note that while the checkmark may be hidden, it could still appear in some places and certain features may reveal that the user has an active subscription. It’s a work in progress, and Twitter promises to continue improving this feature based on user feedback.
Background on Twitter’s Blue Checkmark System
Twitter introduced the blue checkmark system back in 2009 with the intention to help users easily identify legitimate accounts of celebrities, politicians, companies, brands, news organizations, and other accounts “of public interest.” The purpose was to distinguish them from impostors or parody accounts. Until recently, Twitter did not charge for verification.
Twitter Blue and the Premium Perks
Elon Musk launched Twitter Blue as a premium subscription service, offering exclusive perks to subscribers, including the blue checkmark badge. Musk introduced this service shortly after his company’s takeover of Twitter. However, on April 1, Twitter made a significant change and removed blue ticks from verified accounts, introducing the paid subscription service to access the badge.
Verified Accounts and the Badge Removal
The removal of blue ticks affected many prominent individuals across various fields. Bollywood celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Alia Bhatt, politicians including CM Yogi Adityanath, Rahul Gandhi, and Priyanka Gandhi, as well as cricketers Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, lost their verified blue ticks from their Twitter accounts. However, for some, the badge was reinstated after a few days.
Twitter’s New Logo
In an interesting move, on July 24, Twitter replaced its recognizable bird logo with the letter “X” as its new official mark. Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, mentioned that Twitter, now known as X, achieved a “new high” in terms of monthly users after undergoing certain organizational changes. He also referred to the new logo as “interim,” hinting at possible future logo changes.
Twitter Blue’s decision to introduce the option to hide the blue verification badge reflects the platform’s responsiveness to user preferences. This new feature allows subscribers to have more control over the visibility of the blue checkmark on their profile and posts. With ongoing improvements, Twitter aims to enhance the user experience for its paid subscribers while ensuring authenticity and identification on the platform.
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