The Twitter chaos continues – the latest change affects verified users

With the next innovation in its verification symbols, Twitter has further devalued the usefulness of the symbols that were once useful. The difference between the checkmarks previously given to known users after a check and the new payment symbols without real verification completely faded on Monday night.

Twitter owner Elon Musk recently announced that the previous icons will be removed as of April 1. Many celebrity users, such as basketball star LeBron James, have made it clear in recent days that they will not subscribe to keep the white check mark on a blue background in their profiles.

Where’s the problem?

As of Monday, many previously verified accounts still had the icon, but the explanatory text for both types of checkmarks was aligned.

Previously, when users clicked on the symbol, they were shown whether it was once given away for free or was now bought with a subscription payment. Now all the checkmarks say that the account has a subscription or has been previously verified.

American journalist Ben Collins (NBC News) expressed concern about his verified Twitter profile:

The German journalist Stephan Anpalagan was angered his verified Twitter account Sky:

Twitter shares a support page stated that “no new applications for the blue verification check mark” would be accepted under the preceding criteria.

What happened to the New York Times?

An exception to the new arrangement was the “New York Times” Twitter profile, which has had no verification check mark since the weekend.

A Twitter user Elon Musk had previously pointed out that the American media house had announced that it would not pay for a subscription with the symbol.

“Okay, let’s take it down then,” the Twitter boss replied. He then attacked the newspaper in more tweets. Among other things, he claimed that the “New York Times” “spreads propaganda that isn’t even interesting.” He denounced the newspaper’s tweets as “diarrhoea”.

Meanwhile, other major American media had announced that they would not pay for the symbol. On Monday they still had the ticks. Musk often responds to tweets on Twitter from a handful of accounts with right-wing political views. He has long accused the media of covering him unfairly. He recently wrote that they are “racist” towards whites.

Musk bought Twitter last October for about $44 billion. This was followed by a drop in advertising revenue – and it’s only leaning more heavily on subscription revenue.

The subscription costs seven francs per user, or eight euros in Germany, per month. Companies and organizations must pay a monthly basic fee of 950 euros plus 50 euros per linked account for a golden yellow verification symbol.

(dsc/sda/awp/dpa)