Twitter CEO Elon Musk has announced that the company will be transitioning to a new verification system and will remove legacy blue ticks from the platform by April 20.
The new verification system includes automatic verification for linked organisations, color-coded and affiliate badges, and subscription fees for organisations and users.
Elon Musk said that if a Twitter account is linked to a group that has been verified, then that account will be verified automatically. Therefore, individuals connected to a verified organisation will not need to go through the individual verification process. Furthermore, verified organisations can nominate their leadership, social media accounts, employees, and brands for verification.
Linked users will receive one of Twitter's color-coded verification badges, indicating the type of account they have.
In addition to this, users will also receive an "affiliate badge," which is a small image of the parent company's profile picture that will take users directly to the affiliated organisation if clicked.
Organisations in India can nominate as many affiliates as they want for Twitter verification. However, each user will incur an additional cost of Rs 4,102 per month, on top of the Rs 82,041 per month subscription fee for Verified Organisations, excluding tax.
Individual users not connected to an organization can maintain their blue verification badge by subscribing to Twitter Blue for Rs 656 per month or Rs 6,891 per year.
Twitter is phasing out its free legacy verified program, which was used to authenticate notable accounts belonging to celebrities, politicians, influencers, journalists, and more.
The new paid verification system, called Twitter Blue, has received criticism for verifying users based on their willingness to pay rather than validating their identity and affiliation.