The blue checks that helped verify their identities and set them apart from imposters on the Elon Musk-owned social media site are being removed from many of Twitter's prominent users.

Twitter promised to remove the blue checks from accounts that don't pay a monthly charge to keep them, but after repeated false starts, it started doing so on this week.

Under the first blue-check system, Twitter had roughly 300,000 verified users, many of whom were journalists, athletes, and public celebrities. Late morning Pacific Time, the checks—which once signified that Twitter had confirmed the account's identity—started to vanish from these users' profiles.

The cost of maintaining the marks varies from $ 8 per month for loan online users to $1,000 every month for company verification, plus $50 per month for each affiliate or staff account. As was the case with the prior blue check distributed by the platform's pre-Musk management, Twitter does not validate the individual accounts.

LeBron James, a basketball player, Stephen King, a writer, and William Shatner from Star Trek have all declined to sign up as users despite the fact that on Thursday, all three had blue checkmark indicating that the account has paid for verification.

For users who had a blue checkmark, The account "is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number," according to a popup message on Thursday. Verifying a phone number does not prove a person's identity; it only establishes that they have access to it and that they have a phone.

Not just journalists and famous people lost their blue checks on Thursday. There are fears that Twitter may no longer serve as a platform for finding accurate, up-to-date information from reliable sources, notably in emergencies, as a result of the fact that many government agencies, nonprofits, and public-service accounts around the world discovered that they were no longer verified.

Although Twitter offers gray checks for "affiliated organizations" and gold checks for "verified organizations," it is unclear how the social media company distributes them, and they weren't visible on many previously verified agency and public service accounts on Thursday.

Some prominent users have been enraged by Musk's action, and some right-wing individuals and Musk supporters who believed the marks were unfair have been pleased. However, it is not immediately profitable for the social media site, which has long gotten most of its money from advertising.