According to the corporation, users of the social media network X, formerly known as Twitter, will be able to hide their once-coveted blue check marks.
The blue checks, which were a prized status symbol at Twitter before Elon Musk bought the firm, have been derided by some as a hint that the user is prepared to pay for preferential treatment.
“As a subscriber, you can choose to hide your checkmark on your account,” an X help page said on Wednesday.
“The checkmark will be hidden on your profile and posts.”
Blue ticks, which were previously available for free on Twitter, were intended to indicate that the identities of certain users, such as journalists, celebrities, and politicians, had been verified in a bid to increase trust in the network.
Musk, though, denounced this as a “lords & peasants system,” and opened up access to the check marks to anybody who paid for a Blue subscription – a $8 per month program that also grants users access to other special features.
After problems with people buying tick marks and mimicking high-profile personalities, including the tycoon himself, he promptly put the scheme on pause.
The eccentric billionaire then carried out a long-promised move to remove free blue ticks from Twitter users in April.
Some applauded the move as egalitarian, while others saw it as being shaken down for money in order to keep their platform status.
Wordsmith Stephen King, who had previously vowed he would never cough up, even telling Musk that Twitter should instead be paying him to post, appeared horrified to discover that he still had his blue check.
Musk said in response to a news article about the check marks at the time that he was “paying for a few personally,” and replied to King’s message with “You’re welcome namaste.”
Word that X Blue subscribers can try to hide that fact prompted one user to fire off a post contending that Musk “destroyed a decade old symbol of trust and turned it into a mark of shame.”
According to a tweet from the X account @ianvisits, “blue ticks are now so toxic that you can hide the fact that you have one.”
Other paid-for services, such as postings with more than 280 characters, may still allow other users to identify a Blue subscriber even if their blue tick is hidden.
“The checkmark may still appear in some places and some features could still reveal you have an active subscription,” X said at its help page.
