The official account of the American newspaper New York Times The gold brand no longer had Twitter reserved for companies on Sunday, after a tweet by Elon Musk accusing it of “propaganda”, while the social network wants this certification symbol to pay for companies.
The disappearance of the certification in favor of the New York Times It comes after several tweets from the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, who likened the information posted there to “propaganda, not even interesting” and his news feed to “Twitter’s equivalent of diarrhea, unreadable.” This April 2, Elon Musk has also openly advertised which would remove your certification badge.
The New York Times won’t pay
The end of the certification of the official account of this American newspaper occurs after Twitter announced that it would withdraw the historical certification badges as of April 1. In fact, no other account than that of the New York Times you have lost your certification badge.
Twitter offers several paid offers to benefit from a badge, both for individuals and companies. Organizations are charged around €1,000 a month to display a gold badge on their Twitter page. Faced with the refusal of many large companies to pay, the platform finally agreed to show it free for the 10,000 most followed organizations on Twitter. A measure that, in principle, should affect the New York Times.
Asked by AFP, a spokesperson for the newspaper confirmed that the media still do not intend to “pay to maintain the certification of our official accounts” and will not reimburse their journalists who want to do it on their own except in cases “in which continues to be essential to the work” of the latter.
This blue notch, placed next to the name of the profile, has become, however, since its creation in 2009, one of the essential brands on Twitter. She was courted by accounts that wanted to be certified, allowing the platform to become a safe forum for stars, politicians, organizations, and journalists.
According to Travis Brown, a software developer who also specializes in monitoring social networks, more than 60,000 people or entities had chosen, on Sunday morning, to pay to obtain or maintain their certification. However, he noted, these are mostly “small accounts of which very few had a certification before.” In fact, the paid version of the badge is mostly a paid proof, since Twitter does not perform any identity verification.
Source: BFM TV
