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SAN FRANCISCO, April 2 (AP) – Twitter has removed the verification checkmark on the main account of the New York Times, one of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s most despised news organizations.
Many of Twitter’s high-profile users are bracing for losing the blue check marks that help verify their identities and distinguish them from impostors on the social media platform.
Musk, who owns Twitter, set a Saturday deadline for verified users to buy premium Twitter subscriptions or lose checks on their profiles. The New York Times said in a report Thursday that it would not pay Twitter to verify its institutional accounts.
Earlier Sunday, Musk tweeted that the New York Times checkmark would be removed.
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He later made disparaging remarks about the paper, which reported aggressively on Twitter, and published flaws in the partial self-driving system of Tesla, the electric car company he also runs.
Other Times accounts, such as business news and opinion pages, still had blue or gold check marks on Sunday, as did multiple reporters at the news organization.
“We do not plan to pay a monthly fee to check the status of flags for our institutional Twitter accounts,” the Times said in a statement on Sunday.
“We also do not reimburse journalists for Twitter Blue personal accounts, except in rare cases where the status is essential for reporting purposes,” the newspaper said in a statement on Sunday.
The AP said it, too, would not pay for the checks, but the accounts still had checks at noon Sunday.
On Sunday, Twitter did not respond to emailed questions about removing the Times checkmark.
The cost of maintaining a checkmark varies from $8 per month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 per month for verified organizations, plus $50 per month for each affiliate or staff account.
Twitter doesn’t verify individual accounts to make sure they are who they say they are, as it did with the blue checks it issued to public figures and others before the platform’s Musk administration.
While Twitter Blue’s subscription fee might seem like a no-brainer for Twitter’s most famous commentators, celebrity users ranging from basketball star LeBron James to Star Trek’s William Shatner are hesitant to join.
Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander promised to leave the platform if Musk took away his blue check.
The White House will also continue to sign up for premium accounts, according to a memo sent to staff.
While Twitter offers free Gray badges to President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet, lower-level employees won’t be able to get the Twitter Blue benefit unless they pay for it themselves.
“If you see impersonation that you believe violates Twitter’s stated impersonation policy, please alert Twitter using Twitter’s public impersonation portal,” White House official Rob Flaherty said in the staff memo.
Actor Alexander says there are bigger problems in the world, but without the blue marker, “anyone can claim me”, so if he loses it, he’s gone.
“Anyone showing up with it = impostor. I’m telling you this while it’s official,” he tweeted.
After buying Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost revenue for the struggling platform by pushing more people to pay for premium subscriptions.
But his actions also reflect his assertion that the blue verification badge has become an inappropriate or “corrupt” status symbol for elites, journalists and others who were verified for free by Twitter’s former leadership.
Aside from protecting celebrities from impostors, one of the main reasons Twitter started marking profiles with a blue check mark about 14 years ago was to verify politicians, activists and people who popped up in the news, as well as small groups of fresh people. Global publication of known journalists as an additional tool to curb misinformation from accounts impersonating others.
Most “traditional blue checks” aren’t household names, nor are they destined to be.
One of Musk’s first product moves after taking over Twitter was a service that would hand out blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month.
But it was quickly inundated with imposter accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter had to suspend its service days after the launch.
The rebooted service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone or Android app users. Subscribers should see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos, and have their tweets stand out more. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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