A host of current and former Team India superstars including captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Mahendra Singh Dhoni lost their verification ticks on leading social media platform Twitter on Thursday. The platform had begun the process to remove ‘legacy verified ticks’ from Twitter accounts since Elon Musk took over the company last year. Under Musk's management, Twitter came up with its paid subscription ‘Twitter Blue’, which requires the user to pay a monthly-subscription fees for the verified ticks.
A majority of Indian cricketers that also include legendary former batter Sachin Tendulkar lost their verification ticks on Twitter, as a result. Interestingly, it wasn't just limited to Indian cricketers; one of the greatest footballers in the history of the game, Cristiano Ronaldo also lost his ‘tick’ on the platform.
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Under Musk's ownership, Twitter has changed how it hands out the coveted blue checkmarks that were earlier given to noted individuals, journalists, executives, politicians and establishments after verifying their identities. They served as a mark of authenticity.
{{/usCountry}}Under Musk's ownership, Twitter has changed how it hands out the coveted blue checkmarks that were earlier given to noted individuals, journalists, executives, politicians and establishments after verifying their identities. They served as a mark of authenticity.
{{/usCountry}}Musk said in November that Twitter will begin charging $8 per month for the badge in an effort to launch new revenue streams beyond advertising. The company later offered check-marks in other colors - gold for businesses and a gray for government and multilateral organizations and officials.
It has also started displaying labels like "state-affiliated" and "automated by" against accounts to show when an account is linked to a government or is a bot.
The costs of keeping the marks range from $8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to verify an organization, plus $50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account. Twitter does not verify the individual accounts, as was the case with the previous blue check doled out during the platform’s pre-Musk administration.
Leading basketball star LeBron James still had his verification checkmark intact, indicating that he might have already subscribed to Twitter Blue.