Twitter removes Legacy Blue checks for good

As scheduled, Twitter has finally removed its Legacy Blue verification check marks in favor of its subscription checks.

For a while now, Twitter has been promising to remove its legacy verification checks in favor of the checks given to Twitter subscribers for $7.99 a month, and finally, that day has come. Now, anybody you see on Twitter with a blue verified checkmark you can be sure is paying for Twitter’s premium subscription, not because their account has received verification proving they are who they say.

As you might already know, Twitter’s removal of its legacy check system has been extraordinarily controversial. The system was originally devised to allow public figures, organizations, and, really, anybody who might be impersonated online to have an easy way of proving to people that they were, in fact, an official account. However, this verification system has given way to Twitter’s new push toward monetization with its monthly subscription.

If you subscribe to Twitter and verify your phone number, you’ll get a blue check; however, that’s not all. You also get the ability to post massive 10,000-character tweets, you’ll see fewer ads, you’ll get to post longer, higher-quality videos, and you’ll also enjoy prioritized ranking. That last bit is another exceedingly controversial feature where many worry that Twitter’s search function will soon become more of an advertisement for its subscription than it will be an effective way to search for something on Twitter.

Regardless of the controversy, though, gone are the days of the Twitter verified check, and now we are all firmly in the era of anyone and anybody being able to get that check. Now, more than ever, it’s important not to trust things you see on Twitter at face value, because you may not actually be looking at what you think.