Twitter Removes New York Times’ Verified Check Mark

Teejay Boris, Tech Times 03 April 2023, 01:04 am

Twitter, the Elon Musk-owned social media giant, removed the verification check mark of the New York Times official account.

It comes after the billionaire entrepreneur, Musk, gave verified Twitter users a deadline to get their hands on the paid subscription service of the social network, Blue. Otherwise, they will be losing the verified check mark.

(Photo : CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)
In this illustration photo taken on July 18, 2022 Elon Musk's reply Tweet to Parag Agrawal, the CEO of Twitter, showing a poop emoji is displayed on the screen of a smartphone with Musk Twitter page in the background in Los Angeles.

Twitter Removes The New York Times' Verification Check Mark

As per a news story by Associated Press, the giant social network, Twitter, has started removing verification check marks, specifically starting with the official account of The New York Times.

The Associated Press notes in its report that The New York Times also turns out to be one of the new organizations that Chief Twit, Musk, strongly dislikes.

While other news organizations still sported their verification badges on Twitter, The New York Times had a different fate. It no longer shows any verified check mark, which should help users set it apart from mere imposters in the social media giant.

But despite that, the other Twitter accounts of The New York Times, such as its business news and opinion accounts, still rocked the verification check marks that its main page recently lost.

Does The New York Times Plan to Pay for Twitter Blue?

Now that the giant news publication lost its Twitter verification badge, the only way that it could get it back is to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription.

(Photo : OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
In this photo illustration, a phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo shown in the background, on October 4, 2022, in Washington, DC. - Elon Musk has offered to push through with his buyout of Twitter at the original agreed price, reports said Tuesday, prompting a surge in the share price of the social network that triggered a suspension of trading.

Blue, the premium tier subscription service of Musk-owned social network, offers its users exclusive features, such as the much-coveted verification check mark.

However, it seems that The New York Times has no plans of paying for the service to get back its verification badge.

Reuters notes in its report that a spokesperson of the news outlet says that the newspaper is not planning to pay for a Twitter subscription.

The Times spokesperson says that "we aren't planning to pay the monthly fee for checkmark status for our institutional Twitter accounts."

On top of that, the newspaper further spoke about the Twitter Blue subscription of their reporters.

The news publication says that "we also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts." However, in rare instances, the newspaper may plan to do so, wherein "this status would be essential for reporting purposes."

In other Twitter-related news, censorship in the social media giant reportedly soared under the leadership of Musk, a recent study shows.