Twitter's Blue Tick Is Going Through Changes: What It's Been vs What's Coming

With Elon Musk at the helm, Twitter's user verification is poised to undergo a makeover – for better or worse.

It’s official: Elon Musk will make users pay to be verified on Twitter.

(Photo: Deeksha Malhotra/The Quint)

It's official: Elon Musk will make users pay to be verified on Twitter.

The social media company's new owner has confirmed that the blue tick will be available for a price of $8 per month in the US. These prices will be "adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity," he added.

Slamming the platform's current "lords & peasants system" for verification, Musk listed out the new subscription benefits of Twitter Blue.

But before Musk's proposed solution actually gets here, let's take a look at what the Twitter blue tick has meant so far and how that could now change.

What It's Been #1: The Three Pillars

Twitter's verification process so far has been built on three pillars:

• Authenticity: In order to prove that one's account is authentic, an individual user would have to either provide an official email address, link to an official website, or a valid government-issued ID such as driver's licence or passport.

• Notability: A user is considered 'notable' if they've been in the news, if their name has been Googled, if they have a Wikipedia page, or if their follower count puts them in the top 0.05 percent locally.

• Activity: The user's account must be public at the time of application and must have logged into that account in the last six months.

What It's Been #2: Not for Sale

Twitter had made it clear that it does not sell the blue badge. "A Twitter employee will never request financial compensation in exchange for a badge or as part of the application process. Twitter does not authorize any external agents or individuals to sell Verification on the platform," it has said so far.

However, back in 2015, angel investor Jason Calacanis told CNBC that Twitter was looking to let users cash in for blue badges. Calacanis' claims were based on purported "inside information." But Twitter took a different turn in 2017 and stopped verifying users altogether until it rolled out the current mechanism to get verified in 2021.

Seven years later, Calacanis' words are ringing true.

What It's Been #3: A Conversation Starter

Tweets put out by a verified user about music, acting, culture, or politics tend to have a little more velocity.

"The blue tick used to denote notability. People who are notable, people who add value to conversations were the ones who were given this," Manish Maheshwari, the former head of Twitter India, said in a Mirror Now debate.

Not to mention that official statements or breaking news put out by blue-badge holders have a tendency to be taken at face value. Whether the news turns out to be fake or real is a different matter.

What It's Been #4: Recipient of Mixed Feelings

Whether Twitter verification matters is a question that's been contemplated long before Elon Musk came into the picture.

Based on previous reports, we know that politicians in the US have actively sought the blue badge in order to be taken more seriously ahead of elections. Since being verified on Twitter also takes into account the number of followers, influencers desire it to establish clout and clinch promotional deals.

For newbie journalists and activists, the tick mark is tacit recognition that their careers are on the rise.

But this doesn't apply to everyone on the platform. Several users with a significant following do not want to opt for a blue badge. Why? Because Twitter isn't just news alerts, activism, and branded content.

There's a quirky side to the platform which sees various types of bizarre tweets from accounts with aliases. For instance, the anonymous Twitter account @dril, which also goes by 'wint', has amassed more than 1.5 million followers by being blatantly irreverent through tweets that always feel like they are taking shots at someone or something.

What It's Been #5: The Bearer of Bad News

It's no secret that Twitter's verification mechanism has been broken in the sense that a lot of verified users could be considered "problematic."

Remember how Twitter had pressed the brakes on verifying new users for a long time? That was actually sparked by its initial decision to verify a white nationalist named Joel Kessler who was behind the violent Charlottesville protest in the US.

Facing backlash, Twitter had said, "We recognize that we have created this confusion and need to resolve it. We have paused all general verifications while we work and will report back soon."

Twitter started dishing out blue tick marks again in 2021, but with certain controls in place. Will Musk's proposed verification system retain these controls? Will it make way for someone like Kessler to just buy his way to getting verified? Here's what to expect.

What's Coming #1: Chaos and Confusion?

Musk has said that paid verification will entitle users to have "priority in replies, mentions & search." The billionaire is convinced that this is the way to defeat spam or scams on the platform. But something doesn't add up.

"Fake news and hoax news from parody news accounts already spreads like wildfire. Imagine someone impersonates a creator and tweets a link to a new "product" they're endorsing but it's actually a scam?" NBC tech reporter Kat Tenbarge asked.

Allowing anyone who pays to be verified could dangerously blur (or erase) the line between 'newsy Twitter' and 'weird or spam Twitter', a report by The Verge has argued.

What's Coming #2: Tick Mark 2.0?

"Over time, people will also realise that everyone with a blue tick is not notable, everyone with a blue tick is not worth following. So they will look for other signals to figure out who is the right person to follow," Maheshwari said.

Musk has already indicated that there will be secondary tags for public figures, but who qualifies as one is still up in the air.

What's Coming #3: Verification Via KYC?

In order to verify the real 'Slim Shady,' Twitter would likely have to match the profile's username with the name as it appears on their credit card. In other words, it would be tacking the verification process onto KYC standards implemented by banks to prevent fraud. But that could come with its own set of problems:

What's Coming #4: Charges on Top of Verification?

"One nuance that I think Elon might introduce is that you have to be notable but to get a blue tick, you also have to pay the fees," Maheshwari opined.

Using an analogy, he said, "First, you have to be admissible to the college and then you have to pay the fees to attend the college."

What's Coming #5: An Exodus?

With this being Musk's first move to grow Twitter's revenue, several questions remain unanswered.

What happens if a majority of Twitter users decide that they would rather be unverified than pay for it? Will meddling with the verification status kill the conversation on the platform?

Could this nudge users towards homegrown platforms like Koo that allows self-verification? Has Musk miscalculated the demand for a blue tick, especially in developing countries where average revenue per user is relatively much lower than in the US? Could users leaving the platform also take advertisers with them?