New York Times, White House and other VIPs against Twitter: "We will not pay for the blue check"

Via the "reclamation" of the blue checks by Twitter.

Members with a verified profile, if not subscribed to the "Twitter Blue" service, will see their account downgraded, i.e. deprived of the verification marked by the blue check.

The first "victim" of the decision was none other than the New York Times: however, the American newspaper decided not to follow up on the new regulation wanted by Elon Musk, owner of the social network, and thus by the account, which has over 54.9 million followers, the certification symbol has disappeared.

The Politco website and even the White House also side with the Times , which as reported by Axios will not pay to report the verification on the official Twitter profiles of its staff .

“We understand that Twitter Blue does not provide person-level verification as a service. Therefore, a blue check mark will simply serve to understand when it is a paying account» the words of Rob Flaherty, director of digital strategy of the White House.

The New York Times itself has opposed Twitter's business strategy, recalling that it will not pay any fees to allow its journalists to be certified .

The Blue subscription starts at 7 dollars a month, just over 9 euros in Italy. However, organizations and companies that want to get a golden check will need to sign up for a $1,000 a month membership, plus $50 for each affiliate account. These figures only represent indiscretions, as they have not been confirmed by the social network which, as per official indications, is "testing the function with a number of selected companies".

Among the VIPs critical of Musk are actor William Shatner , Captain James T. Kirk on the Star Trek television series , and NFL player Michael Thomas , who won't pay for their check. The bassist of New Order, Peter Hook , intervened with a post recalling that he will not compromise with the logic of the platform and so did the actor Jason Alexander , who reported how, in case of downgrading of the account, he will leave Twitter , worried about identity theft, due to the possibility for anyone to buy the tick and pretend to be someone else.

(Unioneonline/vl)