Twitter has started removing verification badges from accounts that already have blue ticks, after announcing that they will be part of a paid subscription starting April 1.
The New York Times, along with some other organizations and celebrities, said they won’t pay for the blue tick.
The decision caused criticism from Elon Musk.
“The real tragedy of the NY Times is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting. They can’t be read on stream,” Twitter owner Musk wrote on the platform.
There was no official statement from Twitter, and the New York Times did not respond to Musk’s comments.
The NY Times has 55 million followers on Twitter.
Twitter begins removing verified accounts
Under Twitter’s new rules, blue ticks that once indicated official, verified accounts will begin to be removed from non-paying accounts.
Organizations seeking a verification badge instead will have to pay a monthly fee of $1,000 to receive a gold verification checkmark, while individual accounts will have to pay $8 per month for a blue checkmark.
The subscription service will generate revenue for Twitter, but there are concerns that it will be difficult to distinguish real accounts from impersonators without a verification process.