He loves me, he loves me not, says someone plucking a daisy. The social media version of it? Think Blue ticks, Elon Musk and a small birdie… Calling it chaos would perhaps be an understatement, but then chaos is the currency Musk has dealt in ever since taking over Twitter.

OF LORDS AND PEASANTS
Like with most things, this too started with money. Three days after he walked into Twitter’s headquarters with a kitchen sink, one of Musk’s first acts was to start talking about Blue.

“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,” he tweeted on November 1.
CHAOS IS THY NAME
What followed was nothing short of a comedy of errors. Twitter Blue was rolled out hastily, and it lasted just 48 hours. In those 48 hours, a “verified” LeBron James account ended up asking to be traded from the Los Angeles Lakers, and Pope John Paul actually tweeted conspiracy theories to none other than a fake Martin Luther King account. It was a grade-A disaster and Musk and co. pulled it back.

WILL THE REAL BLUE TICK PLEASE STAND UP?
April 1 was when Musk confirmed that Twitter users who haven’t subscribed to Twitter Blue won’t get a verified blue tick. April 1 came and went and one wondered if Musk had pulled an April Fools’ prank. Ten days later, another date arrived — 4/20 (Musk’s favourite for *nudge, nudge, wink, wink* reasons). This time, Musk and Twitter stayed true to their word and almost everyone’s blue tick was removed. You are Bill Gates and didn’t pay for Twitter Blue? No blue tick for you. The who’s who of Twitter who had a blue tick lost it overnight. Some really lost it. One of them was Anupam Mittal, co-founder of Shaadi.com, who tweeted that he was “ticked off” and cancelled his purchase of a Tesla car. Amitabh Bachchan ended up tweeting pleas to Twitter “bhaiya” first and then paid up as well. Some were really bemused. It was quite obvious that there would be a flurry of fake accounts pretending to be real the moment blue ticks were removed.

SO WHO HAS IT NOW?
Predictably, Musk made a U-turn, and a day later, several celebrities got the verified account label back. Apparently, if you had more than a million followers and a verified account, it was restored free of cost. This also included deceased celebrities like Sushant Singh Rajput and Kobe Bryant, among others. However, not all those who have more than a million followers have got the blue tick back. For instance, Chrissy Teigen (with close to 13 million followers) or Manoj Bajpayee (close to 1.7 million followers), still haven’t got theirs back.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
In India, Twitter Blue costs Rs 900 per month for iOS and Android users and Rs 650 for desktop users. Users have the option of editing tweets, posting long-form content, undoing tweets, and getting themes, among other features. Well, not enough, some say, for shelling out that kind of money. Better “Netflixing”!