High-profile individuals lose Twitter verification in major shift

A significant shift has occurred on Twitter as many high-profile individuals, including Davido, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Funke Akindele, Tony Elumelu, Bill Gates, Pope Francis, and others, lost their verified blue check marks. Twitter had initially announced that it would phase out the verification system on April 1, but nothing happened. However, CEO Elon Musk recently announced a new date of April 20, and as of early Thursday afternoon, many celebrities, such as Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, and Kim Kardashian, had also lost their check marks.

The blue check mark system was previously used to identify accounts belonging to public organizations and high-profile users. But now, accounts across all sectors of society have been affected, from prominent TV personalities like CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to congressional representatives like Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. While some representatives have lost verification on their personal accounts, others, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., still have the blue checks on their personal accounts.

As the removal process was underway, some users reported glitches where their blue check marks disappeared, then reappeared, only to disappear again. However, most users who lost their verification badges were accepting of the change. Many took to the platform to express their thoughts on the matter, with hashtags like “#BlueCheckMark,” “Twitter Blue,” and “Verified” trending in the U.S. New tweets were cropping up nearly every minute, and some users even posted memes to commemorate the loss of their check marks.

Tony Elumelu expressed his shock at the removal of his verification badge, while Funke Akindele posted a tweet in Yoruba that loosely translates to “oh no, the blue tick is gone.” Peter Okoye simply stated, “Elon Musk is a BUSINESS MAN Period!”