Featured Image Credit: APFootage / Alamy Stock Photo / PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Topics: Twitter, Elon Musk, Technology, Celebrity, Stephen King, lebron james, Social Media
Joe Harker
Topics: Twitter, Elon Musk, Technology, Celebrity, Stephen King, lebron james, Social Media
Some Twitter Blue subscribers have criticised Elon Musk after he revealed that he's letting some celebrities keep their blue tick without paying.
Yesterday (20 April) some of the most prominent accounts on the popular social media site - including Beyoncé and Ronaldo - lost their blue verification tick, which until recently let people know they were who they claimed to be.
It was part of Twitter's removal of 'legacy' verification ticks, so now pretty much the only people you'll see on the site with a blue tick are those paying $8 a month for Twitter Blue.
Affiliates of Twitter like Musk and official company accounts keep their blue tick, official organisations get a gold tick and government officials get a grey tick, almost everyone else has lost theirs.
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The culling of the verified blue ticks means that what was once a badge of verification to let followers know a person's account was the genuine article is now a sign that you're willing to pay a subscription fee for a badge which no longer really carries any weight.
Only some people aren't paying, as a handful of celebrities have been able to keep their verified status without subscribing to Twitter Blue, even though their account says they have.
Musk confirmed that Star Trek legend William Shatner, basketball star LeBron James and prolific author Stephen King were the three famous figures he's letting stay on Twitter Blue without paying and it's caused a bit of a stir.
A whole load of Twitter Blue subscribers criticised the news that Musk would be letting some famous figures get for free what they were paying for when the whole idea was blue ticks being used to verify people was supposed to become a thing of the past.
One subscriber wondered whether those accounts should be tagged as 'Elon-funded media' while another complained 'so much for equal treatment'.
Someone else said it was a 'two class system' while others asked Musk if he'd mind footing the bill for their blue ticks even though they weren't celebrities.
'Charity for celebrities but peasants pay up lol' was another response made to the Twitter boss, and 'back to a loss of equality' was an extra lament.
Another user pointed out that this move had seemingly been done without the consent of the celebrities, which meant Twitter was now claiming things about them that were untrue.
Stephen King posted that his account now claimed he'd subscribed to Twitter Blue and given a phone number, the typical description if you click on the blue tick now, and said he hadn't done either of those things.
Quite a few suggested that perhaps Twitter's verification system should go back to the way it used to be, as a user suggested 'certain known and reputable people automatically get blue checks' was a decent system.
Some people weren't that mad about certain celebrities getting the Twitter Blue subscription for free, they just wanted to know exactly who was paying money each month and who was getting a complimentary blue tick.