Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma Among Athletes Who Lost Twitter Blue Tick

Star India cricketers like MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma have lost the blue ticks on their Twitter handles over non-payment to the platform.

The move has resulted in several high-profile Twitter handles losing the blue check marks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

Athletes Who Lost Twitter Blue Checks

Rohit Sharma - the India captain - has 21.7 million followers on the micro-blogging website. MS Dhoni - who is leading Chennai Super Kings in the ongoing IPL 2023 - enjoys 8.5 million followers.

Star India cricketer Virat Kohli - who joined the platform in 2009 - has 55.1 million followers. Senior India cricketer Shikhar Dhawan - who is leading Punjab Kings in the IPL - has 6.9 million followers.

Indian star footballer Sunil Chhetri - who enjoys 1.7 million followers on the social media platform - has also lost the blue tick on his profile.

Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar - who has 38.6 million followers - has also lost the verified 'blue tick' from his profile.

India's double Olympic medal-winning shuttler PV Sindhu - who has 3.1 million Twitter followers - and Tokyo Olympics gold medallist athlete Neeraj Chopra - who is being followed by nearly 8.95 lakh people - have lost the blue check.

R Ashwin continues to have Blue Tick

While senior India all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin has a verified blue tick on his Twitter handle. Ashwin - who has 11 million followers on the platform - seems to have taken the $8 subscription plan from the company.

Why Are Blue Ticks Disappearing From Twitter Handles?

Twitter on Thursday (April 20), began making good on its promise to remove the blue checks from accounts that don't pay a monthly fee to keep them.

Twitter had about 300,000 verified users under the original blue-check system - many of them journalists, athletes and public figures. The checks began disappearing from these users' profiles late morning Pacific Time.

High-profile users who lost their blue checks Thursday included Beyonce, Pope Francis and former President Donald Trump. The costs of keeping the marks range from USD 8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of USD 1,000 monthly to verify an organisation, plus USD 50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account.

Twitter does not verify the individual accounts to ensure they are who they say they are, as was the case with the previous blue check doled out during the platform's pre-Musk administration.

"The way Twitter is going anyone could be me now. The verification system is an absolute mess," Dionne Warwick tweeted Tuesday. She had earlier vowed not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee "could (and will) be going toward my extra hot lattes." On Thursday, Warwick lost her blue check.

After buying Twitter for USD 44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform's revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription.

But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or "corrupt" status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others granted verification for free by Twitter's previous leadership.

Twitter began tagging profiles with a blue checkmark starting about 14 years ago. Along with shielding celebrities from impersonators, one of the main reasons was to provide an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts impersonating people.

Most "legacy blue checks," including the accounts of politicians, activists and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, are not household names.

One of Musk's first product moves after taking over Twitter was to launch a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay USD 8 a month. But it was quickly inundated by impostor accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk's businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter had to temporarily suspend the service days after its launch.

The relaunched service costs USD 8 a month for web users and USD 11 a month for users of its iPhone or Android apps. Subscribers are supposed to see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos and have their tweets featured more prominently.

(With PTI inputs)