TWITTER has started stripping “legacy” blue ticks from verified users who have refused to pay the barmy fee for them.
The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Jay Z, Donald Trump and even the Pope have already lost their checkmarks on the social networking site.
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The latest bizarre update is part of Elon Musk‘s plan to drive more people towards signing up to Twitter Blue for up to £11 a month.
The controversial CEO announced that iconic verified symbols would be removed from accounts on April 20 – unless they cough up.
The original free blue tick system was scrapped to promote the premium subscription service Musk rolled out.
He then offered “legacy” blue ticks to Twitter users, which let people know which accounts were legitimate.
But Musk has now decided to completely get rid of the verification mark, meaning A-listers will also have to fork out for the privilege.
Even the biggest household names weren’t able to dodge the chopping block as the blue tick massacre unfolded.
Beyonce, JK Rowling, Ant and Dec, cricketer Virat Kohli and model Chrissy Teigen are among the victims of the push for Twitter Blue.
Both the Labour and Conservative parties also lost their verified checkmark.
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But to add to the confusion among social media users, some accounts seemed to have clung onto their blue ticks.
It seems accounts linked to a verified organisation may retain the verified status, as is the case with Barack Obama‘s personal page.
Some celebs comically bid farewell to their blue tick rather than getting their chequebook out for Twitter Blue.
Pointless host Richard Osman wrote in a tweet: “Farewell blue tick, old friend.
“Don’t forget, always set your feed to ‘Following’ rather than ‘For You’.
“Then you’ll keep seeing the people you actually follow, and not people who’ve paid for attention.”
Political sketch writer and journalist Tom Peck joked: “So everyone’s blue ticks were in the rocket?”
He was referring to the dramatic failure of Musk’s rocket launch that coincided with the Twitter purge.
The world’s most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, exploded due to a technical hitch shortly before landing in the Mexican Gulf.
The verification fiasco now seems to have blown up in Musk’s face just like the rocket did.
The move is also expected to cause headaches for Twitter, as it opens the floodgates for social media users to impersonate celebrities.
Bots and bad actors could impersonate political figures and massive companies to spread false statements.
Users were previously reassured about the author of tweets by the blue tick, which around 300,000 users had the luxury of.
This was mostly made up of news organisations, athletes, musicians, journalists and other public figures.
Twitter previously pumped the breaks on the blue tick clear out after accounts posing as brands, celebs and politicians flooded the app.
By this time, Musk had already steamrolled ahead with his bold plan to allow users to pay for verification.
The social media site then introduced different coloured ticks to help people distinguish between governments, business and people.
Twitter Verified Organisations enables bodies of “all types”, including businesses, non-profits and government institutions, to sign up and manage their verification and to affiliate and verify any related account.
But it costs a base price of a whopping £950 a month.
Twitter Blue was relaunched a month later after tech bosses hoped to have quelled the pranksters.
The legacy checkmarks then began dramatically disappearing towards the tail end of Thursday.
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