Why have Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma lost their Twitter blue tick?
Prominent Indian cricketers Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, and Sachin Tendulkar are among the many celebrities and renowned personalities from the country to have lost their Twitter blue tick.
The micro-blogging site has been removing the Twitter verification marks of users who have not subscribed to the paid “Twitter Blue” service.
Apart from cricketers, Bollywood stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Alia Bhatt have also lost their Twitter blue ticks. Among politicians, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal no longer have the verification badge.
First time in Twitter History
Celebrities without Blue tick 😊 https://t.co/NmrmKVrQEd
Looking at the global list, Pope Francis, former US President Donald Trump, Selena Gomez, Beyonce and football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo no longer have the Twitter blue tick on their official profiles.
What do users need to do to get the Twitter blue tick?
As per Twitter’s latest policy, users will have to subscribe to Twitter Blue's paid service to get verified blue ticks. The cost of getting a verified account is $8 per month (₹650) for individual users. The starting price to verify an organization is $1,000 per month.
As per a report in The Week, Twitter first introduced verified accounts back in 2009 to help users identify famous personalities and organizations. However, things have changed drastically since Elon Musk took over Twitter.
A paid verification system was rolled out in October 2022. The process had to be paused after a number of parody accounts successfully got themselves verified using “Twitter Blue”.
In December, Twitter brought back the paid service. This time, the organization also introduced gold and gray checkmarks for businesses and government accounts.
Twitter’s paid verification system has led to concerns among users with regards to using the micro-blogging platform for accurate news and information in the near future.