Twitter's Blue Ticks Removes as Musk's Attacks New York Times

The New York Times, one of the most influential and widely followed newspapers in the world, has lost its coveted Twitter verification mark. The verification mark, a blue checkmark that serves as a public indicator of an account's legitimacy, was removed from the newspaper's main Twitter account, which boasts a staggering 54.9 million followers. This turn of events was triggered by a tweet from none other than Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla, who announced that the New York Times' account would lose its verification mark after the newspaper stated that it would not pay for Twitter's new subscription service.

The situation arose after Twitter announced last month that it would be phasing out its previous free verification system and introducing a subscription-based service for verified accounts. As part of this change, Twitter started removing verification marks from accounts that did not subscribe to the new service. However, despite this new policy, many verified accounts still retained their verification marks even after the deadline passed. This included several accounts affiliated with the New York Times, such as the New York Times Global, NYT Science, and New York Times Opinion accounts.

Elon Musk, known for his active presence on Twitter and his outspoken views, responded to a tweet by a user named DogeDesigner, who had shared a meme featuring the New York Times' logo and a caption mocking the newspaper for not wanting to pay for Twitter verification. Musk replied to the tweet, stating, "Oh okay, we'll take it off then." He followed up with several other tweets, disparaging the New York Times and its reporting, including calling it "propaganda" and likening its Twitter feed to "diarrhea."

The New York Times, in response to Musk's tweets, stated that the company does not intend to pay the monthly fee to maintain verification marks on any of its institutional Twitter accounts. However, the newspaper did mention that it would consider reimbursing journalists who require verification marks on their personal accounts for reporting purposes, but only in rare cases. The New York Times had previously reported that Twitter's top 500 advertisers and 10,000 most-followed accounts, including the newspaper's affiliated accounts, would not need to pay for verification based on an internal report. However, NBC News has not independently verified this information.

Twitter has not responded to the situation or provided any official statement regarding the New York Times losing its verification mark.