The New York Times no longer has a blue tick on Twitter after the newspaper refused to pay for its verification badge.

Twitter Blue is an opt-in, paid subscription that adds a blue checkmark to accounts.

Users wishing to have a blue tick, which was previously reserved for public figures or official accounts of governments and brands, now have to pay $8 a month or $84 a year for the subscription.

According to the BBC, the New York Times – which currently has 55 million followers on Twitter – also said that it would not pay for its journalists' accounts to be verified.

The news broadcaster said that the social media platform started removing the badges from accounts that refused to pay after it announced the paid subscription service would be launched again on 1 April.

In response to the newspaper refusing to pay, billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk said in a Tweet: “The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting”.

Musk added: “Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhoea. It’s unreadable. They would have far more real followers if they only posted their topic articles. Same applies to all publications”.

The move comes after Twitter paused the subscription service last year after the platform saw a wave of fake accounts being created.

After having finally bought Twitter after trying to back out of the $44 billion deal, Twitter Blue was one of the first changes Musk made to the social media platform as a means of driving revenue.

Share Story: