Twitter is finally getting rid of its legacy verified checkmarks. Not even Pope Francis is immune to losing that coveted blue checkmark on his Twitter account. This process was supposed to begin on April 1. However, Twitter moved that deadline to today.
From now on, people who want to get that blue checkmark on their account must pay $8 a month for a Twitter Blue subscription. To be fair, that subscription does come with some extra perks, such as support for up to 10,000 characters in one post, the ability to edit tweets up to 30 minutes after they are posted, support for bold and italic texts, and a cut down of ads by 50 percent.
Of course, the reason for the old verified checkmark was that people could know that the Twitter account is owned and operated by the person who has that badge. The new checkmarks under Twitter Blue will require that the person submit their phone number beforehand.
Also, subscribers who want to change their profile photo, display name, or username will lose that blue checkmark "until the account is validated as continuing to meet our requirements". More info on how Twitter handles verified accounts with the new subscription model can be found on its support site.