Twitter verification
X verification, formerly known as Twitter verification, is a system intended to communicate the authenticity of an X account. Since November 2022, X users whose accounts are at least 90 days old and have a verified phone number receive verification upon subscribing to X Premium or Verified Organizations; this status persists as long as the subscription remains active.
When introduced in June 2009, the system provided the site's readers with a means to distinguish genuine notable account holders, such as celebrities and organizations, from impostors or parodies. Until November 2022, a blue checkmark displayed against an account name indicated that X had taken steps to ensure that the account was actually owned by the person or organization whom it claimed to represent. The checkmark does not imply endorsement from Twitter, and does not mean that posts (formerly tweets) from a verified account are necessarily accurate or truthful in any way. People with verified accounts on Twitter are often colloquially referred to as "blue checks" on social media and by reporters.
In November 2022, the verification program was modified heavily by new owner Elon Musk, extending verification to any account with a verified phone number, and has an active subscription to an eligible X Premium (formerly Twitter Blue) plan. These changes faced criticism from users and the media, who believed that the changes would ease impersonation, and allow accounts spreading misleading information to feign credibility. In a related change, Twitter introduced additional gold and gray checkmarks, used by Verified Organizations and government-affiliated accounts, respectively. Twitter claims that the changes to verification are required to "reduce fraudulent accounts and bots".
Twitter users who had been verified through the previous system were known as "legacy verified" accounts; legacy verification was deprecated in April 2023, and stripped from accounts who do not meet the new payment requirements. Musk later implied that he had been personally paying for the X Premium subscriptions of several notable celebrities.