News outlets refuse to pay for Elon Musk’s latest Twitter update — Verified Organizations
Twitter’s new verification feature serves a blow to the platform’s ‘authority and credibility,’ Los Angeles Times managing editor Sara Yasin said On Friday, Twitter rolled out a new feature called Verified Organizations, which allows users to verify and verify affiliate accounts they are affiliated with. This feature requires $1,000 and $50 for each affiliate account per month, plus applicable taxes. High profile organizations have rejected the feature, citing that it does not hold the same authority it did before. It is difficult to identify fake accounts due to their user profile picture, or their bio, or include one that alludes to it being their official account or a new account they had to create.
Published : one year ago by Asia Bown in
On Friday, Twitter rolled out a new feature called Verified Organizations — and various news organizations are already opting out.
With Verified Organizations, “vetted organizations that sign up for Verified Organizations are in full control of vetting and verifying accounts they’re affiliated with,” per a Twitter Verified tweet.
Users that subscribe to this plan will be able to add and remove affiliate accounts at will. These accounts can belong to brands, employees, journalists, teams and any other account that is related to the host account.
Affiliates must be added through an invite, and upon accepting this invite a small icon of their host account’s profile picture will appear next to their name on their profile and in search results, per the Twitter help center.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk explained in a tweet that this change was enacted because it’s “important to establish whether someone actually belongs to an organization or not so as to avoid impersonation.”
In order to use this feature, organizations must pay $1,000 and $50 for each affiliate account per month, plus applicable taxes.
Without verification, users won’t be able to vote in polls, nor will their tweets be shown in “For You” pages, Musk announced on the platform.
According to CNN, high profile organizations that have rejected the new feature include The New York Times, BuzzFeed, POLITICO, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Vox.
The Los Angeles Times said that the organization won’t pay for verification on Twitter because the app is “not as reliable as it once was,” per CNN.
Managing editor Sara Yasin told staffers in an email, “Verification no longer establishes authority or credibility, instead it will only mean that someone has paid for a Twitter Blue subscription.”
The Washington Post echoed similar sentiments, saying that an account verification doesn’t hold the same authority it did before.
The overarching theme in these rejections is that the outlets believe that the program has been changed to the extent that the original purpose of independently vetting users has been lost — and so has its value to organizations.
How can users distinguish fake accounts from real ones?
As more users continue to go without verification on their accounts and while anyone can get verified for a subscription fee, it will be increasingly difficult to identify fake accounts.
When in doubt, it is important to follow these steps to determine whether an account is real.
• Check the profile picture. If it’s a stock image or the twitter default icon, the account may not be legitimate.
• If the account follows more accounts than it has followers, the account may be fake.
• Look at the bio. Fake account creators will often leave out their bio, or include one that alludes to it being their official account or a new account they had to create.
• If they ask you for personal or financial information, there is a good chance this is a fake or scam account. Do not give information and report the account.
• Sometimes the most obvious attribute of a fake account is the username. Often, the user will create a username that is almost exactly that of the profile they are imitating. It may be a single letter off, making it hard to identify at first glance.
Even doing your due diligence may not be enough. Some fake accounts have been set up convincingly to trick users. The best thing to do is to avoid any suspicious accounts and to never give out your information to accounts you cannot verify.
Topics: Business Leaders, Twitter, Elon Musk