Thanks to a new feature, “blue checks” may no longer dominate reply threads on X.
There has been a lot of criticism over the past few years regarding how Elon Musk changed the blue check. The blue checkmark was previously used to verify the authenticity of notable users when the platform was known as Twitter. Under Musk, X now doles out blue checks to anyone who pays $8 per month for X Premium. On top of that, blue check subscribers were given priority in the mentions of posts.
As a result, X users would often find blue checkmark accounts’ posts sitting at the top of the replies to their own post, even if these replies were completely irrelevant to the conversation.
\And here’s how it looks on X for web:
Mashable Light Speed
Sort replies on X for web
Credit: X screenshot
The latter two reply sorting options are pretty straightforward. “Most recent” shows replies in chronological order from newest to oldest. “Most liked” shows the replies with most likes first. Blue check accounts appear to have completely lost any advantage that the paid subscription provided them when selecting either of these two menu options.
It’s unclear exactly how X is determining how to sort posts via the “most relevant” option. However, it appears to be the same sorting method as the previous default. Blue checks do still appear to be prioritized in this view.
Any user can change the reply sorting options on any post that they view, not just their own posts.
It’ll be interesting to see if these new options prove to be popular with X’s user base. If many X users prefer to view replies via most liked or most recent, it seems like X Premium subscriber rates could potentially take a hit as one of blue check users’ paid subscription benefits loses some of its power.