Some users on X woke up Thursday to find their verification blue check marks miraculously restored, thanks to a new policy that provides X Premium to popular users.
The policy went into effect overnight, with several high-profile celebrities finding blue checks on their accounts. X sent messages to accounts that received the complimentary blue check.
Actor Jeffrey Wright posted a screenshot of the message Thursday.
“As an influential member of the community on X, we’ve given you a complimentary subscription to X Premium subject to X Premium Terms by selecting this notice,” the message reads. “X reserves the right to cancel the complimentary subscription in its sole discretion.”
Mr. Wright wasn’t pleased with the gift.
“Translation: Pay $8? Kidding. Help me. But don’t say anything too free speechy about me or my Garbage Tower of Babel s**tsite,” he wrote.
It’s unclear how many prominent X users got their blue checkmarks back or how a profile would qualify for a complimentary X Premium account. The decision could be connected to X’s new policy that gives free X Premium accounts to users who have more than 5,000 subscribers.
Thursday’s change effectively puts the old Twitter verification system back in place, just with extra steps. Before the site was dramatically changed by new owner Elon Musk, Twitter gave out blue checkmark verification badges to celebrities and verified businesses and institutions.
However, in April 2023, Mr. Musk began taking away the blue checkmarks from formerly verified accounts, forcing users to pay the $8 monthly X Premium charge to keep it. The change brought a firestorm of criticism from users who said impersonators would abuse the new system. After a few high-profile instances of fraud, Mr. Musk relented and gave some users and institutions their verification badges, seemingly for free.
Yet Mr. Musk might follow through on his proposal last year to make every user pay a small monthly fee to use X.