Official K-pop Twitter accounts among those that lost ‘legacy’ verifications

The official Twitter accounts of numerous K-pop artists, agencies and media outlets, including aespa, Blackpink, EXO, BTS, JYP Entertainment and SM Town, all lost their “legacy” blue checkmarks on Friday as opposed to those accounds who paid to keep their badges.

The blue tick box — which indicates the verified official accounts of celebrities, companies and whatever else — was originally only given to Twitter accounts that had their authenticity verified by the social media service itself.

But in late 2022, with the introduction of Twitter’s paid subscription service, Twitter Blue, Twitter started offering the blue tick box to anyone willing to pay a small monthly fee of $8, while existing verified accounts could keep their blue tick box with additional texts explaining that it’s a legacy verified account.
As of late this week, legacy verified Twitter account users — or those not subscribed to Twitter Blue — have reported that their blue tick marks have been revoked, making them indistinguishable from normal or even fake accounts impersonating them.

In the world of K-pop, there are more official accounts that have lost their verification symbol than those that kept the blue tick box, with boy band BTS Members’ Twitter account, Blackpink’s official Twitter account, girl group aespa’s Twitter account, singer-songwriter IU, Girls’ Generation, EXO and more all left without the blue tick.

Some K-pop-related accounts have kept their blue or gold — a more premium subscription that reportedly costs more than $1,000 per month — tick boxes, including BTS’s other official Twitter account and those of Enhypen, Weverse, Tomorrow X Together and more.

Twitter’s recent move wasn’t completely out of the blue, as Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter in 2022, claimed that “Far too many corrupt legacy Blue ‘verification’ checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months,” in his Tweet last year on Nov. 11.

Twitter has yet to release an official statement regarding the recent changes, but Musk, with over 80 percent of Twitter’s stocks, was seen replying to and mocking Twitter legacy users’ complaints.

Companies and news media outlets also lost their badges, including Apple, The New York Times, Samsung Korea, LG Electronics and more.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]