Elon Musk Calls New York Times ‘Propaganda’, Strips Check Mark From Twitter Account

The New York Times was stripped of its check mark on Twitter after CEO Elon Musk called the newspaper “propaganda” on Saturday. Twitter recently announced that any account that didn’t subscribe to Twitter Blue for $8 per month would lose its check mark in AprilBut, the majority of non-paying users have their checkmarks.

“The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting,” Musk tweeted on Saturday.

“Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable. If they just posted the top articles, their followers would be far greater. Same applies to all publications,” Musk continued.

The New York Times told me on Thursday that it wouldn’t pay for any check marks on any of its accounts and wouldn’t reimburse individual reporters, “except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes.”

While there are many ways to help the New York TimesWhile the check mark has been removed from the account’s main account, there are at least nine other accounts maintained by this newspaper that have not yet been verified. New York Times Arts, New York Times Games, New York Times MusicAnd New York Times Books.

After Tony La Russa, a baseball legend filed a suit against Twitter for impersonation, the check mark verification program began in 2009. This program allowed notable accounts to combat impersonation, and users were able to trust that the institutions and people they saw on Twitter were who they claimed to be.

Under Musk’s management Twitter no longer verifies the identity of users who sign up for Twitter Blue, which leads many users to wonder what they’d be paying for. Musk had promised new features for Twitter Blue subscribers, but these have yet to come to fruition.

There have been conflicting reports about why Twitter hasn’t stripped all non-paying accounts of their check marks yet—a move widely expected by users on April 1. Anyone with a checkmark right now can expect to lose them within the next two week. Unless, of course, Musk changes his mind again, as he’s know to do.