Twitter’s $8 Blue membership program no longer gives new accounts a blue checkmark. Accounts created after November 9, 2022 “cannot subscribe to Twitter Blue at this time,” the firm said. Twitter Blue is available for iOS in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, with ambitions to expand.
Twitter didn’t explain why it’s restricting new accounts, but impersonators paid to get verified. Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, stated earlier this month that the site’s lords-and-peasants arrangement is “bullshit” Yesterday, Twitter Blue launched, allowing users to pay for rapid verification and the desirable blue checkmark.
People rapidly learned they could claim to be someone else on the internet and use the checkmark to trick unwary users. One impostor pretending to be LeBron James tweeted that he wanted a trade. A phony Nintendo of America account tweeted a photo of Mario middle-fingering Twitter, and a fake Valve account announced a new platform. Twitter soon banned them. The new rule could help reduce bogus accounts, but it’s unclear how Twitter will approach the issue in the future. It can’t lock new users out of Blue indefinitely.
Twitter’s blue checkmarks are for sale, but public personalities get a gray ones. It started sending out “official” checkmarks yesterday, but swiftly retracted them and will provide them to “government and business groups” first.
