Twitter to remove legacy verification badges from April 1

Twitter has announced that it will start removing the legacy verified checkmarks from user accounts from April 1. This move will help it move towards its new model where only paid subscribers and members of approved organisations get the verified checkmark.

This is a change we all saw coming a long time ago with the company's new owner Elon Musk having the stance since the beginning that the existing programme was "corrupt". While Musk has been fickle-minded on other changes that he has announced for the platform, but has remained steadfast on eliminating the old verification system.

Twitter has already made the verification checkmark as a bundle deal with its Twitter Blue paid subscription service, which Musk began priced at $8 (approximately Rs 600) per month. He has claimed that the paid service is the best way to both enjoy and improve the platform. He has also claimed that this will solve the platform's bot problem, as the subscribers will get a higher priority in replies and searches, while at the same time only seeing half of the ads and the ability to edit tweets.

Taking a look at the older system, most of the people who had received the verified badges earlier mostly included public figures and journalists. The older system was used to confirm the authenticity of statements and reports that any of these accounts were tweeting, thus making Twitter a trusted source of news.

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Musk's actions like getting rid of the older verification system are being claimed to be an act of his disdain for members of the media. Earlier this month, he had set the auto-respond action for the press@twitter.com email address to the poop emoji, after ignoring several queries from journalists in the previous months. It will be interesting to see how the media personalities respond to these actions, as they are amongst Twitter's most active users.