Famous cricketers Tendulkar, Dhoni, Kohli, Rohit, and Yusuf Pathan are among those to lose their Twitter “blue tick”

On April 20, several famous people all around the world lost the “blue tick” on their Twitter accounts. The verified blue tick, a symbol of legitimacy, was initially created to prevent well-known people from being impersonated. However, Twitter has been working to remove verified checkmarks from accounts ever since Elon Musk took over the company in 2022. Notably, under Musk’s leadership, Twitter launched its premium membership program, “Twitter Blue,” which requires users to pay a monthly subscription fee in order to display the verified checkmark. Before Musk bought Twitter, notable individuals, journalists, CEOs, politicians, and organizations received blue checkmarks once their identities were verified as a signal of authenticity. MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and Yusuf Pathan are well-known Indian cricketers who no longer have verified Twitter accounts. They all have a sizable following on the microblogging site, much as on other social media platforms. Legendary Indian hitter Sachin Tendulkar also lost the verification ticks as a result of the new Twitter rule.

It’s interesting to note that this didn’t just affect Indian cricketers; one of the greatest footballers in history, Cristiano Ronaldo, also lost his platform certification tick. LeBron James, a professional basketball player, kept his verification checkmark, possibly because he had already signed up for Twitter Blue.

Musk predicted in November 2022 that Twitter would charge $8 per month for the verification badge in order to diversify its revenue streams beyond advertising. After then, the business started offering checkmarks in two more colors: gold for corporate organizations and grey for officials, government, and multilateral organizations.

Additionally, it now uses labels like “state-affiliated” and “automated by” to show whether or not an account is connected to a government. Individual users who pay $8 a month can maintain the blue tick marks. An affiliate or employee account must pay $50 monthly, and an organization must spend $1,000 per month to authenticate its account.