Twitter was supposed to kill the “legacy verified” blue check mark, beginning April 1. Elon Musk’s leadership at Twitter has been chaotic from Day 1 and on April 1 it wasn’t any different. The organisation that Musk decided to take on is New York Times.
After the prestigious media company refused to comply with the new Twitter Blue service, Musk went on a tirade and tweeted: “The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting” and “also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhoea. It’s unreadable. They would have far more real followers if they only posted their top articles. Same applies to all publications.”
Then he reacted to a meme (about NYT refusing to pay for Twitter Blue) and made the statement: “Oh ok, we’ll take it off then.” Soon after, NYT’s main Twitter account lost its verified badge, even though it’s the 24th most-followed account.
Should you pay for Twitter Blue?
On April 1, Musk was supposed to start winding down “legacy” check marks but, it seems, that will take time because it’s a manual process. On Sunday, Twitter decided to change the text that shows when one clicks on a verified blue badge. Earlier, an account badge verified in the pre-Musk era read: “This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.” For Twitter Blue it read: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.” Now it reads: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.” This means, nobody will know whether you paid for a verified account or if it is considered important.
So, there could be accounts masquerading as NYT and have a blue tick next to it while the account name could be anything. One has to remember that so far nobody has bothered to look at an account name if it has been verified by Twitter. No longer.
In the last few days, celebrities and organisations have been divided over Twitter Blue. People like LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes II, Darius Slay and Monica Lewinsky have said they are unwilling to pay for a check mark. Star Trek actor William Shatner at first was against a paid verified service but he is okay with “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account.” Joining New York Times is Washington Post and several other publications that are unwilling to pay for verification.
Meanwhile, Musk has said that after April 15, the “For You” algorithmic timeline will only show verified accounts along with the accounts a person follows. The Twitter and Tesla CEO has also said that Twitter will soon add the date of verification to user profiles.
Twitter’s push to aggressively market the paid verification systems comes at a time when the company is reportedly worth less than half what Musk paid for it less than a year ago. A recent memo put the value of company at $20 billion while Musk paid $44 billion to acquire it a few months ago. It’s not good news for Musk as he has taken on a considerable amount of debt to finance the purchase.