Restore the blue badges –

NEW YORK (EFE).— Social network X has begun restoring free of charge the blue check badges that verify the most influential accounts, a feature that had been reserved for paying subscribers since Elon Musk bought the company a year and a half ago.

It’s a new twist that the billionaire teased last week with a post in which he said accounts with more than 2,500 “verified subscribers” — a concept he didn’t clarify and that caused confusion, according to comments — would get paid X services for free.

Musk bought the company (formerly called Twitter) in October 2022 and soon following introduced one of his most controversial changes: Twitter Blue, or X Premium, a subscription model that allowed anyone to pay for the blue verification badge previously linked to trustworthiness and public interest.

That attempt to monetize the social network backfired on Musk, as many users who had the badge, including media outlets and celebrities, said they were not willing to pay, and now seeing their accounts adorned with the symbol, they took the opportunity to complain and joke.

“What is this random blue badge that I didn’t ask for or pay for?” wrote TV lawyer Katie Phang, to which actor Mark Hamill replied: “People: please don’t judge me by my free blue badge,” while others considered it a return to the symbol’s “original” function.

The new change to X comes days following Musk lost a legal battle once morest the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which he sued for publishing a report on the rise of hate speech on the platform under the entrepreneur’s command.

Musk, who bought the platform with the aim of turning it into a kind of uncensored public forum and proclaimed himself a defender of freedom of expression, was accused by the judge who dismissed the lawsuit of wanting to censor the CCDH.

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