An odd event took place this past weekend as Twitter revoked the verification badge tied to the account used by the New York Times.
The “Gray Lady,” as the newspaper is commonly known, seems to be just one of the first accounts to lose its verified status in the wake of the social media titan initiating its change to a paid-subscription model.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, called out those in charge of the New York Times via a pair of posts last night.
“The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting,” he stated while pinging the Twitter handle for the newspaper.
“Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea,” added Musk. “It’s unreadable. They would have far more real followers if they only posted their top articles. Same applies to all publications.”
Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable.
They would have far more real followers if they only posted their top articles.
Same applies to all publications.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2023
Twitter has previously explained that the first of April will be the date it would start to roll back its legacy verified program and take away any unpaid verified checkmarks.
Twitter still offers to its users the choice to keep or obtain its verification badge by making a payment of $8 per month for a subscription to Blue. Musk has suggested that paid subscriptions would allow Twitter to put up some semblance of a fight against the army of both trolls and bots as well as assist in making sure that the massive social media platform has the ability to pay all its bills.
Twitter did, however, offer up a link for organizations to officially sign up for “Verified Organizations,” but a spokesperson for the New York Times explained that the newspaper is not seeking to pay out a monthly fee just to maintain verified status for its institutional accounts.
“We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes,” explained the New York Times vi a spokesperson.
