Twitter to remove legacy verified ticks: Here's how you can retain them

Twitter will start removing legacy verified checkmarks for individual and verified organisations from today i.e. on April 20

Twitter has reiterated that it is moving forward with plans to remove thousands of legacy verification checkmarks previously doled out to celebrities, politicians, journalists and others — merely 20 days later than initially promised.

Elon Musk, who bought the company in October for $54.20 per share, first said that the move would start taking place on April Fools’ Day.

“On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified check marks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue,” the company had said in a tweet.

In a tweet last week, Musk updated the timing to Thursday, 4/20, a repeated theme from the billionaire — who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk had also previously tweeted that he was taking Tesla private at the price of $420 per share, something he was later fined for. The move will cap a busy week for Musk, who is also overseeing the attempted launch of SpaceX’s Starship today.

Legacy blue ticks 

For more than a decade, Twitter had verified accounts with a small, blue check, a visual confirmation that the company had authenticated that the account holder was who they said they were.

But one of Musk’s first initiatives, when he took over the site in October 2022, was to declare that system would end, and instead he would instate a $7.99-per-month service that included, among other things, a blue tick mark.

Meanwhile, in the recent development, the micro-blogging platform is all set to remove all blue badges at once starting today. However, there is an alternative for those who want to retain their blue ticks for free. Let's find out how:

Following the introduction of several-coloured verified checkmarks and the "Blue tick fiasco", Twitter launched its Verified Organisations program.

Musk is making the switch to paid verification in order to generate much-needed revenue for Twitter.  

Verified Organisations program

The Verified Organisations program enables organisations of all types, including businesses, non-profits, and government institutions, to sign up and manage their verification and to affiliate and verify any related account.

If an organisation chooses to verify itself on Twitter through a subscription, it will receive a gold checkmark and square avatar if it's a business or non-profit, or a grey checkmark and circular avatar if it's a governmental or multilateral organisation. This verification indicates that the organisation's account is authentic and has been verified by Twitter.

“A company can affiliate their leadership, brands, support handles, employees or teams. A government can affiliate its precincts, officials, or their other entities. There is no limit to the number of affiliates an organisation can have, or who they can affiliate (as long as they are related),” Twitter said in a statement.

The catch is that Twitter allows other handles to affiliate themselves with the organisation they're a part of. This means that if you're part of an organisation that is verified on Twitter, you can get verified too, as long as your company allows it.

To get verified through an organisation, you need to have an email address associated with that organisation's domain. You will also need to have access to the organisation's Twitter account, as the verification process requires logging into the account and completing the verification steps. Once the organisation's account is verified, other affiliated accounts can also be verified through the same process.