Why doesn’t the New York Times want to pay Musk?
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For years, the official accounts of companies, journalists and celebrities have enjoyed Twitter a tick that verified their authenticity. Free.
Elon Musk, the new owner of the social network, instead expects everyone to pay a monthly subscription: eight dollars for the blue check, which certifies individuals, or thousand dollars for that gold that identifies organizations.
Social Networks
Elon Musk multiplies Twitter ticks: they will be blue, gold and gray
by Pier Luigi Pisa
Musk’s ultimatum – pay or lose your check – expired on April 1st. It’s not April Fool’s. The company has announced that it is starting to remove the ticks of those who have not paid.
The first – or at least one of the very first – who paid the price was that of New York Times.
For now, according to what is also reported by Nbc News, the popular American newspaper seems to be the only major international newspaper to have lost the ‘badge’. All the others who have communicated that they do not want to subscribe – from the Washington Post to the Los Angeles Times – in fact they still have the gold tick on their profiles.
Even celebrities like LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes, who had said they were against paying a fee to have the blue check, were not affected by the provision.
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Why the Twitter blue check costs more on the iPhone, and how to pay less
by Bruno Ruffilli
Two questions, at this point, arise spontaneously.
The first is this: why don’t the big American newspapers want to pay a thousand dollars a month for a check that certifies their contents?
The answer was hinted at by Sara Yasin, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times: “This new verification process no longer establishes any authority or credibility.” A concept also reaffirmed by the Washington Post spokesman, who declared: “It is clear that a tick no longer represents any authority or competence”.
For this reason, all the newspapers that have rebelled against Musk will not reimburse their journalists for the eight dollars a month necessary to keep the blue check. In a note sent to his staff, Politico wrote: “In the future, a badge will no longer prove that you are a verified journalist. But only that you pay for benefits such as the ability to write longer tweets or see fewer ads”.
The second question, however, is this: why did Twitter immediately uncheck the New York Times and pardon – for now – everyone else?
In this case the answer is more complicated.
With an official tweetthe social network communicated on March 23 that the removal of the ticks from the profiles that enjoyed them before the advent of Musk would begin on April 1. This operation takes some timeand thus the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post accounts, for example, may simply be running out of hours.
Between Musk and the New York Times there is no good blood. And that may have made all the difference. When the Times let it be known that it would not pay either itself or its reporters, as Reuters reported yesterday, a meme began circulating on Twitter featuring Musk stating: “The NYT doesn’t want to pay for the tick. Look, nobody cares.”
The real Musk took the ball. And he commented on that meme with a tweet: “Oh, ok, let’s take it off then”. Not even an hour later, the entrepreneur added another tweet: “The real tragedy for the New York Times is that their propaganda is not even interesting.” And again, a few minutes later: “Their feed is unreadable, it’s like diarrhea. They would have a lot more followers if they shared the top articles.”
A few hours have passed and, suddenly, the gold tick from the main New York Times account is gone. A humorous decision, probably, like many to which – in recent times – the entrepreneur has become accustomed to.
Also because a few days earlier, on March 30, the New York Times revealed that Musk’s social network intends to make exceptions: the best 500 investors and the 10 thousand most followed companies/organisations on the platform they will be able to keep their tick without paying a penny. Between these, with its 55 million followersthere is certainly also the New York Times.
The clash between the CEO of Tesla and the American newspaper ignited in May 2022, when the Times published an article on Elon Musk’s childhood in South Africa, suggesting how his life was away from the atrocities of apartheid. The piece had sparked the ire of the entrepreneur’s mother, Maye Musk, who thundered on Twitter: “In South Africa if you openly declared yourself against apartheid you would end up in prison. Do you want to convict a child for the decisions made by a government?”.
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