Stephen King knows weird when he sees it, and the way Elon Musk has rejiggered Twitter’s blue check marks, he says, qualifies.
The prolific horror novelist has long used the social network, where he has more than 7 million followers. He’s also long enjoyed a blue check mark on his Twitter profile, reassuring fans that his account was not fake. But that mark is now controversial owing to changes wrought by Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion last year.
Before Musk’s takeover, King, like other celebrities, received a blue check for free. But Musk now wants Twitter users to pay for the mark with an $8 monthly subscription.
That makes little sense to someone like King.
“The thing is, you know, not to brag or anything, but I get paid to write. I don’t have to pay to do it,” King told Slate in an interview published Friday. “This whole thing has just sort of devolved into something that’s kind of a head-scratcher. It doesn’t keep me up at night, but it’s…it’s weird.”
Last week, Twitter began removing “legacy” blue checks—those granted to notable figures under the old regime—in earnest, delivering on a promise made by Musk.
Soon after, a “Block the Blue” campaign took off, with participants blocking Twitter users who still had the blue check mark. If they still had one, the reasoning went, they must be paying for it, so how better to express displeasure with the new system than to block them?
Musk criticized the campaign.
Then things got weirder. Seemingly at random, Twitter restored the blue check marks of some celebrities who had lost them, without those people asking or paying.
At first, there seemed to be just a few examples. Musk tweeted that he’d personally paid for three: King, NBA star LeBron James, and Star Trek alum William Shatner.
But the number soon increased, making it harder to assume that anyone with a blue check had actually paid. King tweeted on April 20: “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t.”
Musk replied, “You’re welcome.”
Last November, Musk called King “one of most creative people on Earth,” adding, “While I may not agree with everything he says, I do actually want to hear it.”
And in the Slate interview, King expressed admiration for Musk’s accomplishments elsewhere. “I think that Elon Musk made the whole electric car stuff serious,” he said. “The Tesla is a great car. I own one.”
Understandably, some celebrities who didn’t want a blue check following the changes but received one anyway were upset. Even deceased celebrities began receiving the mark for free, among them NBA star Kobe Bryant and TV host Anthony Bourdain.
Twitter could face legal challenges, since the unwanted check marks might now be considered a false or misleading representation of the facts.
“Presumably when consumers see that the celebrity has purchased a product, they’d be more apt to buy that product as well. The fact that it’s untrue could create problems,” Joseph Lawlor, an attorney with Haynes and Boone who specializes in intellectual property matters, told Bloomberg Law. “A lot of these people really protect their images, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re already sending demand letters.”
The check mark has become a “source of confusion” and a “poisonous brand for Twitter,” added Santa Clara University technology and IP law professor Eric Goldman. “It’s unclear how they salvage it.”
Goldman noted Musk seems unfazed by the legal implications. “That he thinks this is funny shows how little regard he has for the legal consequences of his actions,” he said. “He gets away with it mostly. But I don’t think Twitter will be a functional entity by the time the court finds on these data points.”
Interest in Twitter alternative Bluesky, created by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, has surged of late, partly owing to anger over Musk’s changes to the verification marks.
King, however, plans to stick around on Twitter, despite the chaos.
“The thing is, if everybody who doesn’t approve of the way things are going, if we all leave, then it’s just like walking off the field,” he told Slate. “No, I can’t see myself leaving Twitter.”
But, he added, “I don’t tweet as much as I used to, and I don’t look at the site as much as I used to.”
