Wow. The New York Times has lost its blue tick on Twitter after it refused to pay the subscription which Twitter has mandated for accounts to do. A few days ago, the social media entity started removing verification badges from accounts which already had the checkmark.
The New York Times has about 55 million followers. Yet, Elon Musk did not care as he zapped the checkmark. I do not know why the Times did not think it is part of the game to pay for services since people pay subscriptions to read their newspaper.
Founders: there is something we can learn from Elon Musk. You cannot be making customers happy and not capture value. I made that point in a well-received piece in Harvard where I challenged entrepreneurs to be bold, offer the best services possible and also CAPTURE. Musk is making that point clearer.
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“The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting”, Mr Musk, who owns Twitter, wrote on the platform.
“Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable,” he added.
There has been no official comment from Twitter and the New York Times has not responded to Mr Musk’s comments. Under Twitter’s new rules, blue ticks which once showed official, verified accounts, will start to be removed from accounts which do not pay for it.
Organisations seeking verification badges instead have to pay a monthly fee of $1,000 (£810) to receive a gold verification tick, while individual accounts must pay $8 (£6.40) a month for a blue one.
On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://t.co/gzpCcwOpLp
Organizations can sign up for https://t.co/RlN5BbuGA3…
— Verified (@verified) March 23, 2023
Comment on Feed
Comment 1: “I do not know why the Times did not think it is part of the game to pay for services since people pay subscriptions to read their newspaper. This is quite poignant” . These media folks are the same business that harassed Google for publishing news articles without royalties being paid to them. The hands of the clock have now turned the other way and they want to fight it? It’s bill paying time.
My Response: The media world is not fair. Interestingly, they have one man who has so much money to take them up.
Comment 2: Will not having the blue tick make New York Times lose credibility or number of subscribers? If it’s a NO…then maybe the checkmark may not be a priority after all. They may still go ahead and pay for the verification just for the prestige it now carries!
My Response: Ideally, the checkmark should not affect the credibility since 55M followers would not have been following the wrong NYTimes. Yet, if the global perception is that a tick is a validation, if you do not have it, it degrades the brand on Twitter.
Comment 3: Their business model is to ultimately grow their subscriber list. Twitter certainly helps them in achieving this. More news is consumed more quickly on Twitter vs their website/app. These media houses campaigned vigorously to stop Google sharing news articles without royalty payments, and now themselves do not want to pay Twitter for its service? They will moan and pay, because they need the reach of the likes of Twitter to sell new subscriptions at scale
Comment 4: That is just one aspect. Another aspect is that new subscribers may not subscribe if they do not see the blue checkmark and even already current subscribers might doubt the veracity of their posts now. You would be surprised what a blue checkmark can do to a human being’s perception in a world where everyone that is supposed to be “trusted” has one. Another even more important factor is that it makes it easy for someone to clone an account that looks like a New York Times account, post half truths on it and discredit the New York Times brand.
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If not sheer arrogance, why wouldn’t NYT pay for checkmark? Are they also poor, short on cash, or just to prove to Musk that he can’t make money from them? NYT should simply pay, since they also charge for subscriptions, except they are telling us that their 55 million followers mean nothing to them.
When you pay, you can have the right to question how your data is used or who’s making money from your works. NYT has no case, just pay or remain ordinary.
Elon Musk is here, you can now choose to pay for badge of honour, with some privileges, or you join the popular side and stop ranting about unfair treatments.
Musk is just a petty little tyrant. He has basically made the blue checkmarks completely useless. It used to be a way to know that the tweet was coming from the person/source on the account name, not a fake Lebron James or Wall Street Journal account. Now I see the checkmark and I know it is from a sucker who is dumb enough to give Elon Musk $8. It is not our fault that he ran all the advertisers away. It isn’t our fault that he brought back Nazi and Klan accounts. I’m not paying for his inept management. He can do that.
I actually agree with you completely. The world needs less of shrewd Shylock businessmen like Musk. Verifications for official accounts should be a one off event and not something to be attached to subscription. Paid subscriptions which should be optional should offer some tangible on-going service that free subscribers don’t get like total number of followers allowed, etc.