SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter will begin removing so-called legacy verified marks from user accounts next week, as it works towards a model where only paid subscribers and members of approved organisations have that status.

The move to strike legacy verification begins April 1, Twitter said in a tweet on Thursday.

It is one of the earliest policy changes announced by the company’s new owner, billionaire Elon Musk, who described the existing programme as “corrupt” shortly after taking over late in 2022.

Mr Musk has changed his mind about several changes at the social network, but has remained steadfast in his desire to eliminate the old verification system.

Twitter has made the blue verification mark a major feature of its Twitter Blue subscription offering, which Mr Musk began pricing at US$8 (S$10.60) per month and now promotes as the best way to both enjoy and improve the service.

Twitter’s bot problem would also be solved by more paying subscribers, Mr Musk said.

Paying Blue users get higher priority in replies and searches, helping to fight scams and spam, according to the company. They also receive half the ads and are able to edit tweets.

Among the people marked as verified without paying for the subscription are many public figures and journalists.

Over the years of Twitter’s operation before Mr Musk, that system helped confirm the authenticity of statements and reports coming from those accounts and made Twitter a more trusted source for news.

Mr Musk’s antipathy toward the former system has often been couched in the context of his disdain for members of the media, who have tended to be Twitter’s most active verified users.

In March, he set the press@twitter.com e-mail address to auto-respond with a poop emoji, after it largely ignored queries from journalists in previous months. BLOOMBERG