Unbeknownst to Twitter users, the verification badge, once a source of pride and a sure sign that the account was registered or owned by a celebrity, would become a link in global controversy.
After controversial American billionaire Elon Musk announced that those who fail to pay the subscription fee will be punished, large and well-known institutions dismissed the issue, including the White House and the New York Times.
This comes after the platform unveiled a program that imposes a $1,000 monthly subscription on companies and institutions to receive an authenticated badge, which is gold badges for brands and companies and gray badges for governments.
At the same time, an internal document showed that Twitter will refuse commissions for the 500 largest advertising clients and 10,000 of the most popular brands, companies and institutions, according to The New York Times.
These developments came as Blue Bird was expected to start removing authentication tags from the first of this month from accounts that do not subscribe to Blue’s Twitter service, which is a separate $8/month subscription system for individuals.
“The White house”
Accordingly, White House Director of Digital Strategy Rob Flaherty announced in an email to staff received by Axios’ Sarah Fisher that Twitter Blue does not provide human-level verification as a service.
He added that the Twitter Verification for Organization service only provides verification of federations of organizations, explaining that experiments are underway for the program they follow, but they will not register in it.
“New York Times”
As for the New York Times, company spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said in a statement that it does not plan to pay a monthly fee for tick status for its institutional Twitter accounts.
He also stated that he would not reimburse Twitter Blue reporters for personal accounts, except in rare cases where such status is necessary for reporting purposes.
Politico
In turn, Anita Kumar, senior editor at Standards and Ethics magazine, wrote to staff that the verification mark in the future will mean you will pay for certain benefits, such as long tweets, but in return there will be less advertising.
She stressed that Politico will not pay to sign up for Twitter Blue, while employees can of course sign up at their own expense.
“Insider”
Company spokesman Mario Ruiz said in a statement that Insider does not plan to pay for Twitter Blue as a news organization or on behalf of its journalists.
He mentioned that the meaning of the blue tick was that it indicated that the person was the one who said it, meaning that it was reliable, but today it indicates that they are only Twitter Blue followers. This will not help Twitter users or readers.
Los Angeles Times
Managing editor Sarah Yassin wrote in a memo to newsroom staff last Thursday that the Times would not pay for Twitter Blue subscriptions or verify the organization’s own accounts, according to a copy provided by Axios.
“It is still unclear whether there is any real value in this, since verification is no longer a sign of authority or credibility,” Yasin said.
He added that Twitter remains an important tool for news gathering, but is no longer as reliable as it used to be.
big dispute
The blue checkmark is a verification code to verify the identity of accounts, including news outlets, politicians, and celebrities.
It’s unclear what the landscape will look like with Twitter’s new checkmark system, which won’t make it easy to tell trusted users from fake ones.
Whereas a survey last November of 300 marketing and advertising professionals found that 53% said they were unlikely to pay $8 a month for Twitter verification.
