Twitter has removed the verification tick on the main account of the New York Timesone of the media most despised by CEO Elon Musk.
The move comes as many famous Twitter users brace for the loss of the blue checkmarks that previously verified their identity and distinguished them from imposters on social media.
Mr. Musk, owner of Twitter, has set Saturday as the deadline for verified users to buy a premium subscription or lose the verification marks on their profiles. THE Times announced on Thursday that it would not pay for the verification of its official accounts.
Early on Sunday, Mr. Musk wrote that the check mark of the Times would be deleted. He later posted disparaging remarks about the newspaper, which has in the past covered Twitter’s woes and flaws in partially autonomous driving systems at Tesla, the electric car company that Mr Musk runs.
The Associated Press, which said it also wouldn’t pay for the ticks, still had them on its accounts as of midday Sunday.
Twitter did not respond to questions emailed on Sunday about the removal of the blue mark from the New York Times.
Check maintenance costs range from $8 per month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 per month to verify an organization, plus $50 for each affiliate or employee account.
Twitter does not verify accounts that display a blue checkmark to make sure they are who they claim to be, as was the case with the old verification checkmark, which was given to public figures before the arrival of Mr. Musk at the reins of the platform.
While Twitter has granted free gray labeling to US President Joe Biden and members of his cabinet, lower-level staff will not enjoy Twitter Blue benefits unless they purchase a subscription.
After acquiring Twitter for $44 billion in October, Mr Musk tried to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by getting more people to pay for a premium subscription.
But the policy also reflects his assertion that blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite figures, journalists, and others who were granted free verification by Twitter’s previous management. .
Besides protecting celebrities from copycats, one of the main reasons Twitter marked accounts with a blue checkmark was to confirm the identities of politicians, activists, and people who suddenly found themselves in the news, as well than journalists from small local publications. This was an additional tool to combat misinformation from impostor accounts.
One of Mr. Musk’s first moves at the helm of Twitter was to launch a service that gave blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. As a result, the social network was quickly inundated with accounts of imposters, some posing as Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly or companies owned by Mr Musk himself, Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter had to temporarily suspend the service a few days after its launch.
The second version costs $8 per month for Internet users and $11 per month for users of its iPhone or Android applications. Subscribers are supposed to see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos, and have their posts highlighted.