Gachagua loses Twitter blue tick

 

Rigathi Gachagua, Deputy President has lost his Twitter Verification mark. Gachagua who has over 500,000 followers on Twitter lost his blue tick on Sunday.

The blue verification badge is notably found on senior government officials, journalists or a public figures.

This comes after Twitter announced that it will start facing out its legacy blue badges on April 1, 2023.

This follows the platform's announcement last year, that users will now pay a monthly fee under Twitter Blue to have the badge (blue checkmark).

"On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks," Twitter said on Friday.

Going forward, Twitter users who want the verification mark will now have to reapply under Twitter Blue.

The changes came about after Elon Musk bought the company.

Under Twitter Blue, subscribers will enjoy priorities in replies, mentions and searches, which Musk said was essential to defeat spam/scams.

They will also be able to post long videos and audio and get half as many adverts.

"There will also be a secondary tag below the name for someone who is a public figure, which is already the case for politicians," Musk said.

Twitter’s verification which is denoted by a blue check next to the name of the user’s handle, was launched in 2009. This was three years after the launch of the site.

According to the Independent, it was first introduced after baseball legend Tony La Russa filed a lawsuit against Twitter in 2009 over an impersonator.

The idea of verification was that it could prove the identity of a user.