Musk, who owns Twitter, set a deadline of Saturday for verified users to buy a premium Twitter subscription or lose the ticks on their profiles. The New York Times is refusing to pay for verification of its institutional accounts.
Twitter has removed the verification tick on the main account of The New York Times, one of CEO Elon Musk’s most despised news organisations. The removal comes as many of Twitter’s high-profile users are bracing for the loss of the blue ticks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the social media platform. Musk, who owns Twitter, set a deadline of Saturday for verified users to buy a premium Twitter subscription or lose the checks on their profiles. The Times said in a story on Thursday that it would not pay Twitter for verification of its institutional accounts. Early on Sunday, Musk tweeted that the Times’ check mark would be removed. Later he posted disparaging remarks about the newspaper, which has aggressively reported on Twitter and on flaws with partially automated driving systems at Tesla, the electric car company, which he also runs. Oh ok, we’ll take it off then — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2023 Other Times accounts such as its business news and opinion pages still had either blue or gold ticks on Sunday, as did multiple reporters for the news organisation. “We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for check mark status for our institutional Twitter accounts,” the Times said in a statement on Sunday. “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.” The Associated Press, which has said it also will not pay for the ticks, still had them on its accounts at midday Sunday.
