California - Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, has announced that legacy blue checkmarks on Twitter accounts verified under the company's previous regime will be purged by April 20. This means those with legacy verified accounts on Twitter with a blue mark will have to pay to keep the checkmark, and only accounts subscribed to Twitter Blue, Twitter's subscription service, will be able to retain their blue checkmarks.

Twitter Blue is priced differently in different countries, with the service costing Rs 650-900 a month or Rs 6,800 a year in India. Twitter had previously announced that it would start removing blue check-mark badges from legacy verified accounts from April 1, unless users sign up for the Twitter Blue subscription service.

Following the announcement, Twitter modified the wording in the description of verified users on April 2, stating that "This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account." As a result, it's no longer possible to distinguish which users have paid for a blue checkmark and which have not.

However, some celebrities have refused to pay for verification, such as LeBron James, the NBA star and entertainment producer, who tweeted on March 31 that his blue checkmark would likely be disappearing because he wouldn't pay for verification. Nonetheless, @KingJames remains verified as of now.

Musk has stated that the switch to paid verification is primarily to generate much-needed revenue for Twitter and to fight off bots. In the meantime, Twitter has initiated a program that allows businesses and organizations to charge $1,000 per month for verification badges (gold for brands, companies, and nonprofits; grey for governments).
Verified accounts were initially introduced by Twitter in 2009 to help users recognize genuine accounts of public figures, including celebrities, politicians, companies, brands, and news organizations.