Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant and Anthony Bourdain are the latest celebrities to be verified under Twitter Blue, the social media platform’s paid-subscription service that allows anyone to get a blue check mark by their display name if they pay $8 a month and confirm their phone number.
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Except the actor, athlete and celebrity chef died years ago, before Twitter Blue even existed.
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Their accounts — and those of at least a dozen other dead celebrities — now feature a blue check, which, if hovered over, displays the message: “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”
It was just the latest in a series of changes under new owner Elon Musk, who purchased the company for $44 billion in October. Since then, Musk has terminated more than 75 percent of the company’s employees, changed the way users’ timelines worked and, on Thursday, removed check marks from thousands of legacy verified accounts belonging to celebrities, journalists, politicians and others.
But it quickly became clear over the weekend that some high-profile individuals still had the check mark, which is now available as part of an $8 a month subscription, even if they said they weren’t paying for it.
Musk said he personally paid for the subscriptions of at least three celebrities; one of them, the author Stephen King, later tweeted that Musk “should give my blue check to charity.”
Regarding the accounts of those who had died, it wasn’t immediately clear whether someone paid for Twitter Blue or whether Twitter had decided to grant them free. Many of the profiles haven’t been active since these people died, while others are being actively managed.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment early Sunday.
The controversy over the check marks follows a rough week for Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and Tesla. A SpaceX Starship and its rocket blew up Thursday minutes after launch, and disappointing Tesla earnings on Wednesday sent the stock price plummeting.
People in Musk’s orbit have noted that the world’s second richest man has been distracted by Twitter and making changes there, The Washington Post has previously reported. In an interview earlier this month, Musk said he’s sleeping on a couch at Twitter headquarters and has put his dog Floki in charge.
Musk has said the removal of most legacy check marks is a way to resolve what he described as a “lords & peasants system.” The check marks were previously given free to certain public figures and were meant to signal that Twitter had verified the authenticity of the account.
Now, the blue check marks are available to anyone for purchase. Twitter’s Help Center specifies that accounts that get the check mark as part of their Twitter Blue subscription “will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable and authentic criteria that was used in the previous process.” Experts have warned that this could increase the risk of impersonation and accelerate the spread of misinformation on Twitter.