Elon Musk’s Twitter has officially begun removing blue checks from “legacy” verified accounts as he had promised, and one of its first targets has puzzled Twitterverse.
The Twitter account for The New York Times lost its verification early Sunday, days after the legacy newspaper said it refused to pay the monthly $8 subscription to “Twitter Blue.”
“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for verification of our institutional Twitter accounts,” a spokesperson for The New York Times told CNN’s Oliver Darcy. “We also will not reimburse reporters for the verification of personal accounts” with the sole exception of “rare instances where verified status would be essential for reporting purposes.”
With the organization’s blue check mark noticeably becoming one of the first “legacy” verified accounts to disappear, reactions of dismay poured in, with one user commenting, “the tidal wave of disinformation here in the coming months is going to be massive.”
Another user pointed out that organization’s loss of Twitter Blue status only harms Twitter in the long run, saying “it’s the first big step in stripping away the true value of this social media platform – trusting and knowing something is real without having to spend time investigating.”
All eyes were on Musk, who some users believe retaliated against the NY Times by taking their blue check after he insulted the news organization on Twitter late Saturday. “The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting,” he tweeted, adding, “their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable.”
“Wow, Elon took away the New York Times’ verification. He’s literally just a mega wealthy troll trying to destroy everything,” one user said, while another wrote, “the New York Times isn’t verified automatically because the world’s richest sad boy decided they wouldn’t.”
Despite the initial shock, some users pointed out that the loss of the blue check won’t necessarily hurt the organization, but will instead make it more difficult for users to discern the authenticity of the account. “The New York Times doesn’t need a Twitter algorithm boost or the ability to write extra-long tweets,” one user said. “Their checkmark was only useful (to NYT and everyone else) if it meant ‘this is definitely the NYT.’”
Check out more reactions to the New York Times losing their blue check:
