Some things just shouldn’t be for sale.
Last week, Twitter started removing blue check marks from previously verified accounts that hadn’t paid the $8 monthly fee for its subscription program. Journalists, activists, and scientists—people who once used the platform to debunk COVID-19 misinformation or share election results—found their checks gone. In their place, the check marks filled the profiles of sycophants complaining that their subscriptions to Twitter Blue were not resulting in more engagement on their posts.
The blue check mark on the Twitter profile was an immediately recognizable symbol. Social media symbols are usually brand-associated; the blue check mark was originally associated with Twitter but later adopted by Meta across its products as the symbol for verified accounts, while other platforms have knockoffs, like gray check marks on YouTube.
Before Musk’s takeover of the company, Twitter Blue existed as a subscription service launched in 2021 for limited markets. It included a range of perks, like a time-limited “Undo” button. This sort of subscription model is nothing new, even for otherwise free platforms.But when Musk took the helm in late October, he quickly revamped the subscription service by tethering the blue tick to it—and thus adding another meaning to the symbol.
One of the most visible examples was the fake-but-verified Eli Lilly account, which claimed the company was going to make insulin free. Eli Lilly have been criticized extensively for the high price of insulin—and while the post wasn’t from Eli Lilly, it put the company in an awkward position. Eli Lilly felt it had to deny the tweet, but denying the tweet meant drawing attention to insulin pricing.
This was made worse by the fact that Musk decided to “gift” subscriptions to many accounts , making it appear as though they’d paid for Twitter Blue. This is fraudulent, but somehow especially morally grotesque when it involves claiming that dead people paid for a subscription.
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