Twitter’s XBlue Allows Paid Users to Hide Verification Checkmarks

Twitter, now known as X, has introduced a new feature that allows paid users to hide their verification checkmarks. Previously, the social media company introduced paid verification with the launch of Twitter Blue, which has now been rebranded as XBlue during the company’s ongoing rebranding exercise.

The help page for paid subscriptions, titled ‘About Twitter Blue’, has been updated by the company. It states that even if users hide their checkmarks, they might still be visible in some places, although no further details about these places have been provided by the company.

“As a subscriber, you can choose to hide your checkmark on your account. The checkmark will be hidden on your profile and posts. The checkmark may still appear in some places and some features could still reveal you have an active subscription. Some features may not be available while your checkmark is hidden. We will continue to evolve this feature to make it better for you,” reads the help page.

This new feature allows users to benefit from subscription features without displaying that they have a verified account. The option to hide the checkmark can be found in the “Profile customization” section of account settings.

In March, Twitter was reported to be working on a feature to hide checkmarks using ID verification by app reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi.

There was significant controversy surrounding the introduction of paid verification as it made it difficult to distinguish between legacy verified accounts of notable individuals and users who had paid for the checkmark.

In April, Twitter removed legacy checkmarks, only to reinstate them later for top accounts, regardless of whether they had been paid for or not.

Since the rebranding, X has introduced various features to incentivize users to engage more on the platform. These include a 10,000-character limit for posts, a 3-hour-long video upload limit, fewer ads on the timeline, and most recently, ad revenue sharing for subscribed users. Additionally, in May, the platform enabled encrypted direct messages for verified users.