Shortly after his arrival at the Twitter address, now X, Elon Musk decided to modify the previous account verification systemthe famous check blue, for a new one and not without controversy. As you will remember, previously this identifier was granted to accounts of recognized and recognizable people and entities, in order to prove their authenticity. This made it easy to distinguish legitimate accounts from fake ones, whether they were humorous or trying to impersonate a specific identity.
The change brought by Musk was, you will remember, to end that validation system and make the only requirement to obtain the verified user badge is to go through the checkout monthly to pay for the subscription to X Blue, which as you may have also deduced is the new name of Twitter Blue. A seamless plan, what would that one say… so much so that its implementation had to be put on hold after the impersonations sprouted like flowers in spring, giving rise to a grotesque situation.
After stopping to think about it for a bit, habit that seems very unusual if we talk about Musk, the social network finally found a way to avoid (or at least significantly reduce) the number of impersonations, which made it possible to reactivate the granting of verified to payment accounts. And we must take into account that, at that time, the check blue was highly valued, as it was interpreted as an indicator of the relevance of the account that held it.
Today times have changed, see a check blue now only indicates that the user of that account pays for it monthly and, consequently, it is even perceived negatively by more and more users, to the point that more than one has had to contact the social network to see if it was possible to hide it. Well, it seems that it will be possible now, as we can read in the help center (at the moment only in the English version) X will allow X Blue users to hide their verified badge even if they remain a Blue subscriber.
We are talking about a very, very recent change, so much so that one thing is indicated on that same page… and the opposite. Yes, by checking the X Blue feature list, we can read the following:
«Hide your checkmark: As a subscriber, you can choose to hide your checkmark on your account. The checkmark will be hidden on your profile and posts. The checkmark may still appear in some places and some features could still reveal you have an active subscription. Some features may not be available while your checkmark is hidden. We will continue to evolve this feature to make it better for you.»
However, if we scroll down to the answer to the question «Can I remove the blue checkmark from my account? Why would my blue checkmark be removed?«, we find the following answer, in the second paragraph:
«Blue checkmarks obtained with a Twitter Blue subscription cannot be turned off by subscribers during the term of their subscription. Even canceling the subscription will not remove the blue checkmark until the subscription term expires.»
In the Spanish version of the terms we do not find this new function in their list, and when consulting the answer to the same question we see that the same thing is indicated as in the English version:
«Blue checkmarks earned with a Twitter Blue subscription cannot be disabled by subscribers during the term of their subscription. Even canceling the subscription will not remove the blue check mark until the end of the subscription term.»
Other than that, again, it becomes clear that changes to X are carried out in a truly chaotic manner (isn’t it great that the answer to the question is yes and no at the same time? Are we talking about the verified Schrödinger?), the really interesting thing is to see to what extent the value of verified accounts has been degraded. Something that, until a few months ago, was a valuable badge, has become something that some users want to hide.
It is true that X Blue offers some interesting advantages, such as the possibility of editing messages, publishing longer texts and others, but something that was going to become the main attraction of the subscription is something that every time wants to be hidden by more users, it makes you think. But hey, I am a generous person, so I share a business proposal with Musk again (I already offered him another one here): a higher monthly fee for X Blue users who do not want it to be known that they are. Think about it, it is a round business.
