Twitter Inc.’s widespread removal of legacy blue checkmarks was sowing confusion across the social-media platform on Friday, with celebrities saying they were verified without paying, government-affiliated labels on some media accounts disappearing and businesses being told they needed to pay for checkmarks to advertise.
Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, pledged to remove the icons that established accounts of celebrities, journalists, government officials and other notable users unless they paid $8 a month for the privilege. After a rocky few weeks and an extended deadline to give some people more time to decide, Twitter began removing the symbol from accounts on Thursday. But some people seemed to inexplicably still have theirs while there were plenty of instances of imposters.
Pope Francis lost his checkmark, as did Donald Trump and Christiano Ronaldo. Meanwhile, LeBron James still had a blue check by his name even though the athlete previously said he wouldn’t pay for a subscription.
