Legacy blue ticks have started being removed from Twitter as the social media site continues its push to drive more people towards signing up for Twitter Blue.

Twitter Verified tweeted that legacy verified checkmarks would be removed from the site on April 20, with the main way of getting a blue tick being to sign up for Twitter Blue, with an £8 monthly fee for those based in the UK.

The legacy checkmarks began disappearing towards the end of Thursday.

Some of the biggest accounts losing their ticks include footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, cricketer Virat Kohli and former US president Donald Trump, as well as the official Twitter page for the Pope.

British comedian and presenter Richard Osman quote-tweeted the official post from Twitter Verified about the removal of the legacy verified checkmarks after losing his, writing: “Farewell blue tick, old friend. Don’t forget, always set your feed to ‘Following’ rather than ‘For You’.

“Then you’ll keep seeing the people you actually follow, and not people who’ve paid for attention.”

 Many other users losing their ticks mourned the occasion, tweeting “my blue tick has passed away” and “RIP to my blue tick”.

To add to the confusion, some legacy accounts seemed to retain their ticks if linked to a verified organisation, including Barack Obama’s personal page.

Twitter Verified Organisations enables bodies of “all types”, including businesses, non-profit groups and government institutions, to sign up and manage their verification and to affiliate and verify any related account.

But it costs a base price of £950 a month.

One of the most famous profiles with a blue tick because it is “subscribed to Twitter Blue’ is Taylor Swift’s, which has 92.5 million followers.