Without having to subscribe, Twitter reinstated the blue tick badges on some Twitter accounts with more than a million followers.
Among those who received their blue ticks back were Victoria Beckham, Harry Kane, Richard Osman, and Beyoncé.
The gold badge is back on the BBC News Twitter account, although it was not purchased.
The blue tick was a sign of verification offered by Twitter prior to Elon Musk's purchase of the company.
It was initially employed as an authentication mechanism to help halt the proliferation of false accounts and incorrect information.
Now, it is a sign that a user has subscribed to Twitter Blue, a premium service; there is a verification procedure associated with making the purchase. Prices vary depending on where the membership is purchased, but they typically cost $8 per month.
On April 20, those who had a blue tick from the first verification procedure but had chosen not to pay the membership price started to lose their ticks.
James O'Brien, a broadcaster with 1.1 million followers, is one of those who previously lost their blue tick but has now regained it. He acknowledged that he had not made a payment on his account.
He said that several accounts with fewer than 1 million followers also appeared to have had their blue ticks restored, "anointed entirely at Elon Musk's discretion."
Eliot Higgins, the founder of the research group Bellingcat, assured me on Friday that Bellingcat's verification and his blue tick had both been provided. Mr. Musk has claimed that he personally paid for the subscriptions on behalf of the critics of the plan, including the writer Stephen King, actor William Shatner, and basketball player Lebron James.
Despite having over 21 million followers, certain celebrities, such as actor Ryan Reynolds, who also owns the Wrexham football club, still do not have a blue tick.
It was reportedly necessary to manually remove the legacy blue ticks, so it's probable that this will also be a manual procedure that takes place over the next several days.
The rollout of Twitter Blue was problematic. Due to the rise of bogus accounts posing as legitimate institutions, it was originally delayed. However, in recent weeks, both subscribers and previously validated users have experienced delays.
Tweets from subscribers are more visible, individual messages can be longer, and they will see fewer advertisements.
Elon Musk has said in the past that the company's finances were in terrible shape when he took over and that Twitter was making a $4 million loss every single day.
The number of users who have decided to subscribe to Twitter so far has not been made public, although the app developer Sensor Tower told TechCrunch that the site had about 386,000 subscribers in March 2023.
This excludes subscriptions bought through Twitter's website as opposed to its app, although they represent a very small portion of the company's estimated 300 million users.
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