X gives free blue ticks to its most popular users

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 08:53:59 GMT
BBC News - Technology

The site formerly known as Twitter is giving premium access to those with more than 2,500 verified...

X, formerly Twitter, is giving blue ticks to its most "Influential" users in a significant change of policy.

Those with more than 2,500 verified followers - people already paying for X Premium - have been given premium features for free.

As well as the blue tick, the users will see fewer adverts on X.Blue ticks were originally a way to verify users were who they claimed to be, but they became a paid-for feature after Elon Musk purchased the site.

People with more than 5,000 verified followers have been given free access to Premium+, which removes almost all adverts and ranks their tweets even higher when replying to another person.

Before X was bought by Mr Musk, the blue tick was a badge of verification given for free by the platform.

The blue tick was once seen as a marker of a person's authoritativeness on the site, as only a few people could become verified, such as celebrities, government workers and journalists.

Under the billionaire, the blue tick instead became a symbol showing that an account had subscribed to X Premium - previously called Twitter Blue - with a verification process attached to that payment.

Elon Musk sued over $128m unpaid severance at Twitter.

Elon Musk's electric vehicle company is contending with major challenges, as rivals make gains.

A US judge says Mr Musk's social media firm had sued to punish its critics.

Summarized by 62%, original article size 1351 characters