Micro-blogging site Twitter removed the legacy verified blue tick from verified accounts on Thursday.
This comes months after the company's CEO Elon Musk announced the date to press users to sign up for Twitter Blue, its paid subscription service.
The only individual Twitter users who have verified blue checkmarks are those paying for Twitter Blue, which costs USD 8/month via the web and USD 11/month through in-app payment on iOS and Android.
Due to the recent development, Bollywood celebrities including Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Alia Bhatt are among the big names that have lost their blue ticks.
Political figures including West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi have lost their verified blue ticks.
On the other hand, cricketers Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, among others, have lost their verified blue ticks from their Twitter accounts.
Twitter first introduced the blue check mark system in 2009 to help users identify that celebrities, politicians, companies and brands, news organizations and other accounts "of public interest" were genuine and not impostors or parody accounts. The company didn't previously charge for verification.
Earlier in March, Twitter posted from their official handle, "On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue."
Although some users who continue to have a blue check received a message saying that their account “is verified because they were subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”
Initially, the blue tick served as a way of protecting well-known individuals from impersonation and tackling false information.
