Twitter confirms deadline for removing ‘legacy’ verified check marks

If you want to keep your blue check on Twitter, you’ll need to hand over payment details in the next few days, according to Elon Musk.

Twitter’s CEO has confirmed that the latest deadline for the company to remove ‘legacy’ blue ticks is April 20 – just over a week away.

The date is believed to be a sly reference to cannabis, which is associated with the number 420 due to the time of day when it is traditionally smoked.

Musk was famously filmed smoking the drug during a live webcast with comedian Joe Rogan in 2018.

He tweeted the update and also confirmed the news in a “hurriedly arranged” bombshell interview with the BBC, accusing the interviewer of lying.

Musk tweeted on Tuesday night: “Deletion deadline for old blue checks is 4/20.”

Twitter previously said April 1 would be when the “legacy” checkmarks would be removed – though many remained after this date, causing confusion.

On Twitter, the blue check mark at the end of an account holder’s name is used to indicate that an account belongs to someone of public interest, such as a celebrity, politician, or journalist.

The whole point of the blue tick was that it could verify the identity of a notable person and distinguish him or her from an impostor.

However, under Musk’s ownership, the tick is now simply an indicator that an account is subscribed to Twitter Blue, the platform’s subscription service that costs up to £11 a month in the UK.

Twitter Blue gives subscribers access to several exclusive features, such as custom app icons, the ability to undo a tweet immediately after posting, and, for subscribers in certain countries, the ability to edit tweets.

Meanwhile, some features that have long been available on the free version of Twitter — such as voting in polls and two-factor authentication via SMS — will soon become Twitter Blue exclusives.

It is thought that Musk – who bought the social media network in October for $44bn (£5bn) – is trying to get Twitter’s user base to pay a monthly fee to boost profits.

Musk has also rolled out new gold and gray ticks to denote verified companies and government agencies respectively, charging £1,000 a month for them.

The South African-born entrepreneur gave his biggest interview on Wednesday since taking over Twitter, with the BBC at Twitter HQ in San Francisco.

While discussing the topic of hate speech on Twitter, Musk accused BBC interviewer James Clayton of lying because he was unable to substantiate his claims.

Musk also said Twitter had “four months to live” if he didn’t make changes and cut costs to save the company from bankruptcy.

The billionaire owner confirmed that about 80 percent of his staff have been laid off since he took over, including Twitter’s global communications team.

All emails sent to press@twitter.com now receive a poop emoji in reply, while Musk seems to have taken over the role of communication himself, tweeting updates regularly.

Twitter now has about 1,500 employees, a sharp drop from “just under 8,000 employees” before it acquired the company in October.

Musk also revealed that his takeover had been painful and that he felt “constantly attacked,” but that the company is finally breaking even financially.

And he revealed that he had gone to sleep on a couch on the seventh floor of Twitter’s headquarters.

Also this week, Musk shut down the company that owned Twitter — Twitter Inc — and incorporated it into its own company, called X Corp.

The boss of Twitter and Tesla seemed to allude to the news with a simple tweet with the letter X.

X Corp will be the parent company of all of Musk’s endeavors, including SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and an upcoming platform he refers to as “an “everything app.”

This app could one day include parts or all of Twitter, as well as online services and utilities such as ridesharing, food delivery, and more.