NEW YORK — Elon Musk’s X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has started giving free blue verification badges back to some of its users, which has caused a lot of confusion on the platform.
For years, Twitter’s blue checks were verification badges common on social media, mainly for celebrities, politicians, and other influential accounts. That changed after Musk bought the platform for $44 billion in October 2022.
Last year, X began giving verification checks only to those who paid at least $8 per month, and removing verification badges from many celebrities and other prominent accounts. This caused confusion, complaints, and many fake accounts pretending to be someone else, including those with blue check marks.
But late Wednesday night and early Thursday, many users reported seeing the blue checks return to their accounts, or appear for the first time, even though they were not paying for “premium” services on X.
Musk stated last week that all X accounts with more than 2,500 verified subscriber followers would receive Premium features — including a checkmark — for free from now on, and that accounts with over 5,000 would get Premium+ for free.
The specific reason for this new policy was not clear. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Reactions were mixed. While a few users were excited about the verification, others were frustrated.
“What happened? I didn’t pay for this. I would NEVER pay for this,” actress Yvette Nicole Brown, who seemed to be among the prominent names to see a blue check return, wrote in a post Wednesday evening.
As X’s blue check has also transformed into what some argue is a sign of support for the platform’s new ownership and subscription model, a few other accounts even shared instructions on how to get their newly-placed blue checks removed through settings changes.
In posts about the blue checks this week, some users shared a notification they received on the platform stating that they were receiving the free Premium subscription “as an influential member of the community on X.”
