On Sunday, Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, removed the blue tick verification of the New York Times.
The New York Times, founded in 1851, is a daily newspaper based in New York City, United States of America, with a global readership of 740,000 paid print subscribers and 8.6 million paid digital subscribers as of 2022.
The New York Times has stated that it will not subscribe to Twitter Blue unless it is required for their reporting.
The removal of the New York Times appeared to be punishment for refusing to pay for Twitter service.
A tweet from a verified UX/UI Twitter account (@cb_doge) read, “New York Times says It Won’t Pay For Twitter Verification”
Musk relied on the tweet on Sunday, stating that it will revoke the news outlet’s verification.
“Oh ok, we’ll take it off then,” he replied.
He went further his personal Twitter account to tweet “The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting.
“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.”
A check by our correspondent on Monday shows that the verification badge on the US news outlet has been removed and that appears to be the only account hit by the removal as of the moment.
The CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, Elon Musk, previously announced in March that legacy verified users would lose their blue ticks from the site as of April 1 unless they paid the US$8 per month subscription cost for Twitter Blue, while businesses pay the US$1,000 per month.
Our correspondent noted that as of Monday, blue ticks of legacy verified users who had not yet paid the US$8 monthly subscription cost for Twitter Blue were still present.
The distinction between Twitter Blue subscribers and legacy verified accounts was also abolished by Twitter on Sunday. Users are now informed when clicking the tick that an account is “verified because it is subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.”
Washington Post reports that legacy verification has been eliminated.