Twitter will remove ‘legacy’ blue checks on April 1

Twitter has chosen April Fool’s Day, otherwise known as April Fool’s Day, to begin removing old blue ticks from the platform.

Despite the importance of the day chosen by Twitter, the removal of old checkmarks has been anticipated for months now. Musk tweeted in December that the company would delete these checks “in a few months” because “the manner in which they were distributed was corrupt and absurd”.

Since then, holders of old blue ticks have seen a pop-up when they click on their tick that reads, “This is an old verified account. This may or may not be noticeable.

Before Musk acquired the company, Twitter used checkmarks to verify that individuals and entities were active, authentic, and notable accounts of interest. Verified check marks were distributed free of charge.

Today, Twitter users can purchase a Blue Check through the Twitter Blue subscription model for $8 per month (iOS and Android subscriptions will cost $11 per month, due to App Store costs). There are also other tick colors and badges available for purchase to indicate whether an account is business or government, for example.

Twitter says buying a tick gives users access to subscriber-only features, such as fewer ads on their timeline, priority ranking in conversations, bookmark folders, and the ability to create long tweets, edit tweets and cancel tweets.

The news comes hours after Twitter also announced the availability of the Blue subscription worldwide.

Twitter did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for more information on the number of users already signed up to Twitter Blue.