Twitter users awoke Friday morning to even more chaos on the platform than they had become accustomed to in recent months under CEO Elon Musk after a wide-ranging rollback of blue check marks from celebrities, journalists and government agencies.
The end of traditional verification marked the beginning of a radically different information regime on Twitter, one highlighted by almost immediate impersonations of government accounts; the removal of labels previously used to identify Chinese and Russian propaganda; and a scramble by the company to individually re-verify certain high-profile figures such as Pope Francis.
A broad array of media organizations lost the gold verification badges Musk’s team had developed months earlier as an alternative to traditional brand verification, reflecting those organizations’ apparent refusal to pay for the badges that now cost Sh130,000 ($1,000) a month.
Several prominent Twitter users including LeBron James, William Shatner and Stephen King also refused to pay to keep their verification badges, prompting Musk to personally intervene. Appearing to sense the problems that might ensue if those users went unverified, Musk said Thursday he would pay out of his own pocket to ensure James, Shatner and King’s profiles continued to be verified.
“My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t,” King tweeted.
“You’re welcome namaste,” Elon replied, adding a prayer emoji.
Though some of the most visible issues with the rollout could be ironed out in the coming days, the broader impact of the change has been to make it more difficult for users to determine an account’s authenticity and potentially to undermine Twitter’s central role as a hub for news.
Twitter verification is no longer an indicator that an account represents who it claims to represent; instead, it reflects that a user – or, apparently, the owner of Twitter – paid for Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service.
Earlier experiments with changes to verification had led to similar chaos, prompting Twitter to postpone the rollout multiple times.
Twitter continued to move forward with its paid verification strategy, however, with the hope of bolstering subscription revenue after seeing a sharp decline in its core ad sales business.
News organisations like CNN and BBC World are unverified. KTN News, Citizen TV, K24, Radio Maisha, and Nation Africa have also had their checkmarks withdrawn.
In Kenya, key institutions that were previously verified on Twitter such as the ministries of Interior, Health, Foreign Affairs and Tourism were also unverified at the time of publishing this story.
Kenyan Opposition leader Raila Odinga, Chief Justice Martha Koome, and Raila Junior had retained the blue checkmarks on their accounts, though it was not clear whether this was because they had paid for the service.
However, other notable public figures suffered a different fate, including former Justice Minister Martha Karua, Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen and lawyers Ahmednasir Abdullahi, Donald Kipkorir, and Miguna Miguna.
“It is haram to pay $8 dollars a month to the richest man in the world when the same can feed a family in Kenya for a week. I will not pay for it,” Abdullahi tweeted hours after the purge.
His counterpart Miguna would write: “Goodbye verified blue tick. I’m not paying one red cent for the blue tick!”
Notable journalists, both local and international, who have not paid for the service were not spared either.
Many users are now worried that Twitter will lose its authenticity and trust as a source of accurate and verified information, especially in the case of breaking news and emergencies. The concern is that anyone can now pay and be verified.
In November last year, Twitter was forced to temporarily pause the launch of the paid-for-blue checkmark, after several people took advantage, impersonating key figures including presidents, brands, and even Musk himself.
One such verified account would purport to be ‘Jesus.’
