Musk reiterates plan to remove Twitter’s ‘deeply corrupted’ legacy verification

Twitter CEO Elon Musk reiterated his plan to remove the social media platform’s “legacy” verification in a “few months” on Friday, calling the system “deeply corrupted.” 

“Twitter’s legacy Blue Verified is unfortunately deeply corrupted, so will sunset in a few months,” Musk tweeted in response to a question from a user about accounts that previously had verification and then subscribe for thew newer Twitter Blue verification. 

Musk said in November that he would remove blue checkmarks from previously verified accounts that did not pay $8 per month for his Twitter Blue in “a few months.” 

The Tesla CEO rolled out his new Twitter verification system soon after he acquired the company in October. 

The system had some struggles upon its launch as a flood of Twitter users who paid for the subscription posed as famous people, causing confusion. Musk paused the Twitter Blue system for a couple weeks to make adjustments to try to avoid the issue. 

But The Washington Post reported last month that Twitter still did not appear to be verifying accounts after a reporter successfully posed as Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) with verification. 

He has said the subscription is necessary to help Twitter pay off its billions of dollars in debt. He also laid off about half of the company’s staff as a measure to try to cut costs.