The Master Troll Elon Musk Bans the “Block the Blue” Twitter Account and Starts Giving Its Biggest Proponents Twitter Blue for Free

Trolling is considered a veritable rite of passage in the Musk-verse, providing an avenue for Elon Musk to not only vent his frustration but also lead his supporters on a “jolly good” ride of sorts. After earning the dreaded ire of Elon Musk a few hours back, the “Block the Blue” movement now finds itself besieged by hefty counterattacks launched by the CEO of Tesla and Twitter. And the drama has yet to reach a satisfying climax.

For the benefit of those who might be unaware, Twitter began removing the legacy blue tick marks that denoted the “verified” status of an account on Thursday. From here on, the coveted blue tick marks will only appear for those accounts that pay the $8 per month subscription fee.

#BlockTheBlueChecks is not "just a petty retaliation" against Musk.

"Verification used to mean a person was like an actor or a journalist or something and now it means they’re a white nationalist with 30 followers or they’re hawking crypto or s/t"https://t.co/LS8UgeofZB

— Pete Quily (@pqpolitics) April 22, 2023

As Twitter embarked on its blue-axing campaign with apparent gusto, the creator of The Block List – an automated app that allows users the ability to seamlessly block accounts that are deemed undesirable – created the @BlockTheBlue Twitter account to penalize those Twitter users who’ve opted to add to Elon Musk’s already-sizable coffers.

From there, things escalated pretty quickly. First, the Block the Blue account was itself banned.

Before Block the Blue was banned, its account had almost twice as many followers than Twitter Blue has subscribers today. pic.twitter.com/I1Q3eLEFyF

— Tʀᴀᴠᴇʀɴ (@travern82) April 21, 2023

Before its untimely demise, the account had around twice as many followers as those that now subscribe to the Twitter Blue service.

It appears that Elon has now blocked nonpayers' ability to see verified notifications to make it harder for us to mass block/mute the blue checks. Just humiliating for him and this platform pic.twitter.com/J005HVqGuT

— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) April 22, 2023

Then, Elon Musk tried to thwart this growing revolt by blocking the ability of non-paying Twitter accounts to see verified notifications.

NEWS: Twitter trolls the “Block The Blue” movement by giving their biggest proponents Twitter Blue. pic.twitter.com/lpgeTE3giN

— T(w)itter Daily News  (@TitterDaily) April 22, 2023

Finally, Elon Musk is now apparently giving the Twitter Blue premium tier to some of the biggest proponents of the “Block the Blue” movement for free.

For context, do note that there are around 630,000 Twitter Blue subscribers at the moment. The premium tier gives the ability to edit tweets as well as broadcast content in multiple formats, including long passages and lengthy videos. In order to attract content creators, Elon Musk recently pledged to pass on the entirety of subscription-based revenue to such individuals for a period of one year.

Of course, the latest controversy comes on the heels of another one involving legacy media houses. As we noted in a post earlier this week, Elon Musk seemingly capitulated by removing the contentious “state-affiliated media” and “government-funded” tags on the accounts of major media outlets, including NPR and BBC. With 37 of the top 100 advertisers of the pre-Musk era refusing to spend a single dime on Twitter in the first quarter of 2023 and another 24 advertisers in this list curtailing their ad spend on the platform by around 80 percent, the capitulation was seen by many as an effort on the part of the CEO of Tesla and Twitter to attract recalcitrant advertisers. If that’s the main aim, however, the recent bludgeoning of the “Block the Blue” movement is unlikely to endear Elon Musk to this critical cohort.

Written by Rohail Saleem