Celebs Are Getting the Twitter Blue Tick for Free

What the hell is going on?!

Since Elon Musk bought Twitter last year, the platform has undergone months of controversy, layoffs and drama.

He even held a poll last year on Twitter saying he’d ‘step down as head of Twitter’ if the users voted yes.

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

Over 17.5 million people voted, with 57.5% of votes for ‘yes’.

Yet, he’s still here.

I know you’re thinking, “surely it can’t get any weirder?”

But Elon’s only gone and proved us all wrong.

Since his takeover, Twitter users were having to pay to have the infamous blue verification tick next to their name, which became known as ‘Twitter Blue’.

Apart from having the verification tick, Twitter Blue accounts also give the ability to edit tweets, allowing longer tweets, roughly 50% less ads on the timelines, and more.

Now the latest drama from Twitter comes from seeing ‘blue ticks’ pop back into the names of many celebrity accounts on Twitter – without them paying for it.

I don’t know what happened but I’m happy to have my blue tick back so everyone knows I am still Malala 🌝

— Malala Yousafzai (@Malala) April 22, 2023

You might think, “that makes sense – celebrities should be verified so there’s no fake accounts that can pop up.”

True, but what about when the verification on their name states that they paid for it?

This is obviously super misleading, being deemed as ‘false advertising’.

Elon admitted a few days ago that there were some accounts verified he was ‘paying for a few personally’ – Stephen King, LeBron and William Shatner.

I’m paying for a few personally

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2023

The Guardian reported that over the weekend, ‘almost every celebrity user with more than 1 million followers’ received a new blue tick.

Quite a few of these accounts are coming forward, clarifying that they received the blue tick without paying for it.

Despite the implication when you click the blue badge that has mysteriously re-appeared beside my name, I am not paying for the "honour".

— Ian McKellen (@IanMcKellen) April 23, 2023

Did you know you can also pay for a subscription to certain Twitter accounts too?

I don’t know about you, but I’m struggling to keep up with all these changes.

I’ll guess we’ll wait and see what Musk has in store for us all next.

Header Image: 'Elon Musk' - Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.