Twitter: Blue ticks from April 1 only for money

Twitter plans to begin removing the free blue ticks for verified profiles on April 1.

To keep the sign, individuals would have to subscribe to the Twitter Blue subscription, which costs eight euros per month, according to a tweet on Friday evening. Twitter owner Elon Musk also pointed out that accounts associated with companies and organizations verified on Twitter will automatically receive the symbol.

Twitter set the base price for verified companies and organizations in Germany at 950 euros per month plus 50 euros for each connected account. After Musk’s $44 billion acquisition, Twitter is struggling with declining ad revenue and hoping for subscription revenue.

In the past, Twitter provided verification check marks free of charge to celebrities, politicians or journalists. After buying the service last fall, Musk claimed the previous procurement process was “corrupt.” Instead, anyone without a trial should be able to get the icon with the subscription.

Musk argued that authentication through payment services and app platforms provides sufficient protection against abuse of the new system. But that didn’t stop many users from creating fake celebrity and corporate accounts with verification checks. It affected sports stars, the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and fruit specialist Chiquita, among others. Twitter suspended the subscription feature for several weeks after the chaos.

Subscription customers must meet several requirements

Since December there has been a procedure in which subscription customers must also meet a number of requirements. Among other things, your account must be at least 90 days old and linked to a phone number. Corporate accounts have a yellow and gold icon, and governments and other organizations have a gray icon.

Musk had repeatedly announced that the previously allocated taps would have to be phased out over time. The Blue subscription has been available worldwide since Thursday. Several owners of the old symbol reported a warning on their profile telling them to subscribe so as not to lose the tick.

Twitter gave no information on how soon to remove the old symbols. As was the case recently, questions sent to the Twitter press department email address only received a response with a feces emoji. Musk had disbanded the press department.

(sda/awp/dpa)