A number of ‘Recognised’ Twitter accounts saw their Blue Ticks being taken away on Friday morning. Among those who were left without the Verified Checkmarks were ace cricketing personalities like Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar, etc. The move by Twitter led to questions being raised by fans. One of the fans even asked the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar about how he would know who the real Sachin Tendulkar is on Twitter without the Blue Chekmark. The Master Blaster gave a beautiful response to the worried fan.
“Now that, you don’t have the blue tick, how can we be sure that you’re the real Sachin Tendulkar?,” fan asked.
“As of now, this is my blue tick verification!,” Tendulkar said with a picture of him smiling.
As of now, this is my blue tick verification! https://t.co/BSk5U0zKkp pic.twitter.com/OEqBTM1YL2
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) April 21, 2023
The legacy blue checkmarks were previously granted to journalists, public officials, and celebrities for free as a measure against impersonation and spam on the social media platform.
Twitter, which was taken over by business magnate and Tesla CEO Elon Musk last year, however, removed the blue ticks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly subscription for the service on Thursday.
“Tomorrow, 4/20, we are removing legacy verified checkmarks,” the official Twitter Verified account had tweeted on Wednesday.
Apart from the above trio, World Cup-winning captain MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Olympic medallists Saina Nehwal, Neeraj Chopra and Bajrang Punia, wrestler Vinesh Phogat, two-time World Boxing Champion Nikhat Zareen, Sania Mirza, Indian football team skipper Sunil Chhetri, men’s hockey goalkeeper PR Sreejesh were among a plethora of Indian sporting icons who have lost their blue ticks.
Tennis great Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, footballers Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe and basketball legend Stephen Curry are also no longer “verified” on the social media platform.
From now on, only individuals and organisations that pay for the premium Twitter Blue subscription will get the verified credential on their profiles.
The Twitter Blue subscription is available for a monthly fee of Rs 650 on the web and Rs 900 on mobile devices.
With PTI inputs
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