Blue ticks: Trick or treat?

The price is fixed: pay Rs 719 a month and get your own blue tick. (Image: Reuters)

Everything has a price, even that tiny blue tick on Twitter. Ever since Elon Musk took it over, the microblogging platform has developed a facial tic over blue ticks. Is Musk the Santa sliding down our chimney with a sack full of ticks in blue, or is he a Scrooge out to squeeze out every penny per tick?

The number of followers was never the criterion for tick bestowal. People without followers could apply for it, while those with a million followers remained tick-less. There was a simple process in place to get verified for this tick, and if you qualified, there it was, a halo around your handle.

Introduced in 2009, the little blue tick only meant to clarify that the account is run by the person who says they are running the account and not by an imposter. Then came Musk and suddenly you can hear hawkers outside peddling blue ticks; they are now being sold over the counter! Anyone can have them. The price tag is fixed: pay Rs 719 a month and get your own blue tick.

From now on ticks are to be divided by description, making it clear whether they are bought or not. And the question is: does this new transactional tick delivery – ‘Twitter Blue’ – take away the exotica previously attached to this verification? The snob value so far had been delicious, with blue-tickers the blue-blooded tweep royalty. The rest were red-blooded rabble rousers.

Government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures may continue to apply the traditional way. But others can go buy the tick, which makes some features on the house. In the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, blue ticks are already on sale. India must wait another month.

Is Twitter Blue a power move or a commercial gimmick, we do not know yet, but the gap between the haves and the have-nots has definitely widened. Blue ticks have now entered a double caste system. You earn them the old-fashioned way or not; you can afford to buy them or not. So being tick-less on Twitter just means you are neither important nor rich.

Twitter being Twitter is full of tweets about the tick – for, against, mocking and memes. Elon is tweeting away: ‘I love when people complain about Twitter… on Twitter.’ In another tweet he seems to be taking an oath: ‘Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.’

Under Musk, satirists will have to specify they are parody accounts. Now is the moment God and Jesus Christ, who follow Justin Bieber and no one, respectively, must tell us if they are real or fake on Twitter.

@MoaningSparkle, a hilarious fake account by someone pretending to be Meghan Markle, has always had #parody and #comedy in the description but under the new regime may have to speak up louder on its parody credentials.

There goes the doorbell. Blue ticks are here – trick or treat?

Also read: Musk halts Twitter's coveted blue check amid proliferation of imposters