Basketball star LeBron James and author Stephen King have retained their Twitter checkmarks after the social media made a purge on Thursday.
“The Shining” author King, who had previously called Elon Musk a terrible fit for Twitter, tweeted: “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.”
Musk tweeted back to him: “You’re welcome namaste,” with a hands folded emoji.
The Verge reported that LeBron James, who had previously said he would not pay for verification, had not paid to keep the checkmark.
Musk tweeted separately: “I’m paying for a few personally.” and later tweeted “Just Shatner, LeBron James and King,” referring to Star Trek actor William Shatner, who had last month complained about being forced to pay to keep his blue checkmark.
However the legacy blue checkmarks for other famous people including Beyonce, Bill Gates, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kim Kardashian and former US President Donald Trump were removed.
Pope Francis, who lost the blue tick earlier on Thursday, was later given the gray verification checkmark by Twitter.
Under Musk’s ownership, the company has changed how it hands out the coveted blue checkmarks that were earlier given to noted individuals, journalists, executives, politicians and establishments after verifying their identities. They served as a mark of authenticity.
Musk said in November that the social media company will begin charging $8 per month for the badge in an effort to launch more revenue streams beyond advertising.
The company later offered checkmarks in other colors – gold for businesses and a gray for government and multilateral organizations and officials.
Twitter on Friday also dropped the “government-funded” label from the accounts of US-based National Public Radio (NPR), British Broadcasting Corp and public broadcaster Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
It dropped the “China state-affiliated media” tag on the accounts of Xinhua News as well as of journalists associated with government-backed publications.
NPR stopped posting content on its 52 official Twitter feeds after the social networking company labeled it “state-affiliated media” and later “government-funded media”.
CBC also paused its activities on Twitter and sparred with Musk over the platform’s definition of “government funded”.
