Twitter Blue is launching again today as some ‘legacy’ checks display vague messages
Call it Twitter Blue: Take 2.
Elon Musk is relaunching his version of the Twitter Blue subscription service today—a little more than a month after its first disastrous launch. Twitter Blue was originally rolled out by Twitter in the pre-Musk era of 2021, when it allowed subscribers advanced customization of profiles and organization of tweets. But the main draw of Musk’s revamped Twitter Blue was that any subscriber would get a coveted blue check next to their name.
Within hours of Musk’s Twitter Blue launching, however, major brands like Eli Lilly, Nintendo, and Coca-Cola fell victim to blue-check impersonators as did numerous well-known individuals, like Elon Musk himself. Musk pulled the new Twitter Blue shortly after launch amid concerns from advertisers about brand safety and wide ridicule in the media.
Today Musk is giving his Twitter Blue another go. The features, according to a tweet from the @Twitter account, include prioritized placement for the user’s tweet when they tweet a reply to someone else; the ability to post longer videos; and 50% fewer ads. Blue subscribers can still also get a blue check, but only if they verify their phone number and have gone through an approval process.
The new Twitter Blue will cost $8 a month, but that price jumps up to $11 a month if you subscribe on an iPhone via an in-app purchase. Twitter is charging iPhone subscribers more because Apple, like Google, takes a 30% cut of all in-app subscriptions. Twitter is not the first company to charge iPhone subscribers more.
But now that Twitter Blue is relaunching—and the blue check will once again indicate that someone has paid for a subscription, rather than denoting a notable account—what will happen to accounts that previously had a blue check?
We’ve known for a while now how to tell if an account has a blue check due to being notable or due to being a Twitter Blue subscriber. Clicking the blue badge next to an account produces a message that indicates which accounts paid and which were notable.
However, now there are reports that some accounts have been displaying an even more vague message: “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.” Of course, Twitter could just be testing this message and may not end up rolling it out widely.
It’s not known if Elon Musk will allow these so-called legacy verified accounts to keep their blue checks in the future.
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