![]() So, is this move better than taking away all Legacy checks and making it purely a Blue thing? I’d argue yes, but barely, and it may make impersonation itself worse. And conversely, while Twitter itself won’t display the difference between Legacy and Blue now, they are still coded differently, and extensions like the one that replaced Blue checks with a “nerd” emoji still work after this change. Elon Musk has said that Twitter Blue subscribers would be boosted in replies and in places like the For You feed, so if people show up there with checks, I guess that’s a pretty strong giveaway. There are also additional complicating factors here. While I don’t begrudge anyone shelling out for it, I’m also just unclear of why you would in this situation. If you don’t have more than a few dozen or hundred followers, and you don’t have a bio that indicates you’re some sort of public persona, essentially everyone will assume you’ve just paid for the checkmark, and the vast majority of the time, they’ll be right. Low Follower Twitter Blue Checks – The root of the “this MF paid for Twitter!” meme, I still don’t think these folks are going to be fooling anyone.Low Follower Legacy Checks – I don’t have an exact number of what I’d consider “low followers,” but I’ll say maybe anything under 5K, if you have a blue checkmark now, you will be on the “Twitter Blue suspect list.” Before the Elon era, I knew many journalists with just a few hundred to a few thousand followers that were verified because of their public reporting roles, but now after this change, they look like Blues, unfortunately for them.This would be someone like “Catturd2” where with a high enough follower count, you could probably fool most people into thinking you had not in fact paid for Blue and may have been previously verified. Non-Verified Users with High Followers – This may be the group that benefits the most from this change, many of whom were the sort of ultra-complainy controversial figures who applauded Musk’s ascent to take over Twitter, because for one reason or another, they had never been officially verified which they mostly viewed as a status symbol they were being denied.So if the choice is between giving only Blue checks and taking mine, and keeping mine, sure, I’ll keep it. I’m at 158K followers, and I will be honest, I was kind of bummed to be losing my check, as it did feel like it was at least some recognition of being somewhat known within my own field, albeit yes, the old legacy verification system was confusing and in need of a rework (just not Musk’s “sell verification” rework). Non-Celebrity Legacy Checks with High Followers – I’d put myself in this category.But simultaneously, you will now run into perhaps the even more confusing situation of two Lebrons with identical badges that say the same thing, and you’ll have to instead look at their follower counts or exact handle to figure out who is the real one. On the one hand, we won’t have the goofy situation of the real Lebron James losing his checkmark and a fake Lebron James “verified” with a blue badge. Celebrity Legacy Checks – This is a mixed bag.
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