Twitter users with a coveted blue verified check mark on their account may soon find themselves having to paying to preserve that status.
Twitter executives are “strongly considering” requiring those with the free check mark on their profile pay $5 each month for a Twitter Blue subscription or lose their badge, Platformer’s Casey Newton reported Sunday afternoon. Executives have spent the weekend talking about the idea and making plans about the measure, sources told Newton.
The blue badge is seen by some as a status symbol. To qualify, accounts must be “notable, authentic and active.” That includes accounts of government officials; people representing prominent brands; news organizations and journalists; activists; celebrities; athletes and others.
They’re also fairly rare. In 2021, on 360,000 accounts, or 0.2% of Twitter’s monetizable daily active users, were verified. Still, such a requirement could provide the company with a new revenue stream at a time when it’s reportedly getting ready for layoffs under the new ownership of Elon Musk.
Twitter Blue is a subscription service that offers several premium perks, including allowing users to undo a tweet, read news ad-free, edit a published tweet, organize your bookmarks into folders, pin conversations in your DMs, upload videos up to 10 minutes long and more. When it launched in 2021, the service cost $3, but the month cost went up in October to $5.
It wasn’t immediately clear, under the plans reportedly being discussed, whether the blue badge would be included in all Twitter Blue subscriptions. That too could spur greater interest in the subscription service.
Twitter representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
