Elon Musk, the owner of the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, has reversed one of his most controversial decisions and started bestowing blue ticks on the site’s most-followed users, whether they want them or not. The blue tick, known as “verification” on the site, was once reserved for prominent users who had proved their identity. However, it was opened up under Musk to any subscriber of the service’s paid-for tier, then known as Twitter Blue.
Musk had tweeted that the service would grant free “premium” status to any user with more than 2,500 “verified subscriber follows” and accounts with more than 5,000 would get “premium+”. The two tiers of paid-for service provide a number of benefits, including fewer adverts, more prominent placement in the site’s algorithmic curation, and access to X’s “anti-woke” AI chatbot Grok. But both are best known for the public-facing perk of a blue tick next to the user’s profile.
However, as the “free” ticks roll out, users who had never paid are expressing dismay at their new status.
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