Billionaire Elon Musk has made a lot of changes since he took over Twitter. One of his most controversial moves was allowing Twitter users to get a blue verified checkmark by simply paying for it. For many years, users could only attain a checkmark if they were verified as a person of notoriety by the Twitter team. It was a way for news publications and public figures to show that they were who they claimed to be.
As of April 1, you can no longer distinguish between the checkmark that a user has for being a historically verified account and those that have been paid for. The new description when you click on an account’s blue checkmark reads: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.”
The New York Times is one of the most high-profile accounts to lose its verification tick since Musk took over Twitter. The billionaire has publicly announced that he is not a fan of the renowned news publication which recently confirmed it wouldn’t be paying for verification. Some Twitter users have shared concerns that unknown people will be able to successfully impersonate accounts such as the New York Times.