Elon Musk's X recently announced that Premium users will not be able to hide their blue checkmarks in future. This comes after thousands of profiles received verification badges for free.
New Delhi,UPDATED: Apr 12, 2024 13:26 IST
Once upon a time, having a blue check mark against your name on Twitter (now called X) meant that you are either a celebrity, influencer, politician or a CEO of a large company. Only people who had a certain influence in the community got the blue tick which was considered to be a privilege. In order to get this blue tick, eligible users could apply on Twitter and go through a verification process. However, when Elon Musk took over the website in 2022, the meaning of the blue tick changed entirely. Musk made the blue tick a part of the perks that users subscribing to Twitter Blue (now called X Premium) could enjoy. For this, the users had to pay a monthly fee.
Thus, the prestige attached with the blue tick got lost and now it is a sign that the user is simply paying for the X Premium service. Until now, X allowed users to hide the blue tick. But that will change soon.
As per reports from several users on X, a pop-up has started appearing for X Premium users that warns them about how they will not be able to hide the blue tick anymore.
"The hide your checkmark feature of X Premium is going away soon. Tap to manage your X Premium features," the pop-up reads.
This comes after some X users started getting benefits of Premium subscription even without signing up for it. Two weeks back, Musk, in a post on X, wrote that people with more than 2,500 verified subscribers following them will get access to all Premium features on X for free. In addition to this, people who have 5,000 verified subscribers following them will get Premium+ features at no cost. Thus, if you aren't opting for X Premium yourself, but have the necessary number of verified followers, you might also get all features of the subscription.
"Going forward, all X accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free," Musk's tweet read at the time.
Apart from benefits like blue ticks and a boost in reach, X Premium and Premium+ subscribers also have access to GrokAI, the newly-launched AI chatbot. Earlier, Musk had also announced that xAI's chatbot, Grok, will soon be accessible to all premium subscribers of X. Previously, Grok AI was available to Premium+ subscribers only.
Published By:
Divyanshi Sharma
Published On:
Apr 12, 2024
English (US) ·