Twitter Is Giving Some Celebrities A Blue Badge Even If They Refuse To Signal Up

James is not the one legacy-verified movie star in Musk’s selectively beneficiant eyes. Creator Stephen King, who has been beefing with Musk over the concept of promoting verification for months, nonetheless has his blue checkmark intact. “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I have never,” King tweeted. Musk responded with a “you are welcome” to the celebrated author’s publish, confirming that he’s masking King’s Twitter Blue charge, as properly.

It is a somewhat ironic flip of occasions. “Twitter’s present lords & peasants system for who has or would not have a blue checkmark is bulls**t,” Musk tweeted again in November final 12 months. The billionaire argued that he’s democratizing the verified badge for a nominal charge of $8 per 30 days. 

However it seems that Musk has grow to be the “Lord” in that very “lords & peasants” system that he previously criticized, resulting in a reimaging of the entire verification system. He as soon as argued that Twitter was arbitrarily giving a verified badge to folks based mostly on opaque notability standards. Musk is now arbitrarily paying for the verified badge of a handful of celebrities seemingly based mostly on private preferences.