Less than 5% legacy accounts paid for Twitter Blue, claims researcher

The microblogging site on Thursday began removing the legacy verified blue ticks from the profiles of thousands of users, including politicians, celebrities, and sportspersons with millions of followers on the platform.

“Update for the day after: just before the purge yesterday, 19,469 of the 407k legacy verified accounts I had identified in early April had Twitter Blue. Today that number for those same accounts is 19,497, for a net increase of 28 accounts,” Brown tweeted.

Going forward, those users paying $11 monthly for Twitter Blue can retain the blue tick on their accounts.

In India, the price for Twitter Blue is Rs 900 per month for Apple’s iOS users and Android customers, the monthly charges are Rs 900.

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If you are using the services on the web, you will need to pay Rs 650 per month.

“We are removing legacy verified checkmarks. To remain verified on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue,” the company said in a statement on Twitter.

The latest move resulted in several celebrities losing the verification badge on Twitter. Shah Rukh Khan (43.4 million), Amitabh Bachchan (48.4 million), Virat Kohli (55.1 million) and Rahul Gandhi (23.3 million) are among those who have lost their verification badge.

Even Justin Bieber, the third most followed person on the platform with 113 million followers, and Cristiano Ronaldo, with 108.3 million followers lost their blue ticks.

Meanwhile, Twitter cofounder and former CEO Jack Dorsey’s Bluesky social network, touted as a decentralised alternative to Twitter, has been launched on the Android platform.

Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter’s chief executive in 2021, has pushed for decentralised social networks that give people control over the content they see and the communities they engage with.