Twitter Removes New York Times' Blue Checkmark As The Social Media Platform Winds Down Its 'Legacy Verified Program'

In the early hours of Sunday, Twitter removed the Blue checkmark(in this case a gold checkmark) from the account of far-left media outlet, New York Times. The social media company had announced it will start removing its coveted checkmarks from previously verified accounts after new CEO Elon Musk slammed the old verification program as corrupt and nonsensical.

"On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks," Twitter announced less than two weeks ago. "To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue."

Under the new verification program, subscribers to the Twitter Blue service will get the verified checkmark along with other perks -- gold checkmarks for businesses and non-profit organizations, gray checkmarks for governments and multilateral institutions, and blue checkmarks for individuals.

Many far-left celebrities, activists and some media outlets have balked at paying for the blue checkmark. Woke basketballer LeBron James and media outlets like New York Times among others, have all announced they will not pay for the checkmarks.

Apparently New York Times' announcement was brought to Musk's attention late Saturday night, when a prolific Twitter user tweeted a meme about it, to which the CEO responded "Oh ok, we'll take it off." The gold checkmark was gone from the media outlet's main account shortly after. As of the time of writing this report, the other accounts run by the New York Times retain the checkmarks.

Musk also slammed the far-left media outlet in another Twitter thread, writing "The real tragedy of @NYTimes is that their propaganda isn’t even interesting. Also, their feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It’s unreadable. They would have far more real followers if they only posted their top articles. Same applies to all publications."

Following his acquisition of the social media company, Musk had vowed to open up access to the blue checkmark. Under Twitter's previous management, the verified badge became a status symbol that was given based on who you knew at Twitter. Some conservatives even had the checkmarks stripped from their accounts as punishment for 'wrong think.'

The blue checkmark later became an object of mockery on the political right. Conservatives mocked 'the blue checkmarks' -- especially far-left media talking heads, activists and celebrities who acted as if they were more important than other Twitter users.

Since Musk took over the company and made his contempt for the legacy blue checkmarks known, his new verification program has been hailed by many as a fairer and more open system.

But many legacy verified account owners are not happy with the new system. They claim it dilutes the distinguished status of legacy-blue-checkmarked users of the platform, and may cause an increase in impersonations and scam on the platform.

However Musk and others have argued the new system will help in reducing spam proliferation on the platform, while leveling the playing field for users willing to pay $7 per month to obtain the blue checkmarks.

"Twitter only verifying elites and friends of Twitter employees was wrong," Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted Sunday. "Democratizing verification for $8 was good. Treating everyone the same is principled. What kind of company sells a product but gives it to elites for free? That's just weird thing to do."