Elon Musk bows to pressure as he returns blue ticks on celebrity, media, and organizations Twitter account yesterday, Saturday, 23-04-2023.
He announced last year that accounts with blue ticks will start paying monthly subscription of $8 monthly.
Some thought he was joking until he removes every blue ticks on Twitter last week.
Many celebrities reacted to this, while some deleted their accounts and stated that they will never pay for Twitter’s blue tick.
Popular Chelsea player, Mason Mount released a statement that says he’s deleting his Twitter account and also told his fans to feel free to contact him through other social media.
Non-paying accounts that had a blue tick lost it on Thursday, as owner Elon Musk implemented a strategy, dubbed “Twitter Blue”, to generate new revenue, announced last year.
Only a tiny fraction of blue-ticked users subscribed — less than 5 percent of the 407,000 profiles affected, according to Travis Brown, a Berlin-based software developer who tracks social-media platforms.
But on Friday and Saturday, a number of celebrities regained their blue ticks, seemingly without action on their part, including author Stephen King, NBA champion LeBron James and former US president Donald Trump.
Musk tweeted Friday that he was “paying for a few (subscriptions) personally.”
American rapper Lil Nas X, whose profile displays the blue tick, tweeted: “on my soul i didn’t pay for twitter blue, u will feel my wrath tesla man!”
The accounts of some dead celebrities, such as US chef Anthony Bourdain, also received a blue tick.
Many official media accounts regained a tick, including AFP, which has not subscribed to Twitter Blue.
The New York Times got back its gold badge this month after Musk had bashed the news organisation as “propaganda”.
The Times is among the major media groups that have a gold tick reserved for an “official business account” paying at least $1,000 a month.
The reinstated ticks did not lure back US public radio NPR and Canada’s public broadcaster CBC, which recently suspended activity on their accounts and had not resumed tweeting as of Sunday.
The broadcasters were among those to protest the “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” labels Twitter attached to them, which were previously reserved for non-independent media funded by autocratic governments.
Twitter removed these labels on Friday, including those applied to China’s official news agency Xinhua and Russia’s RT.
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