Social media platform X has removed the gold “verified” badge from the New York Times’ account.
X’s owner Elon Musk had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the news organization.
The badge, which distinguished the Times’ 55-million-follower account from impostors, was removed without notice.
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However, other news organizations still retain their badges.
After Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company in April, X replaced its long-standing badge verification system with a pay-for-play scheme.
It grants blue badges to those paying $8 a month and gold badges to “verified organizations” paying at least $1,000 monthly.
The New York Times declined to pay the fee, prompting Musk to tweet support for the immediate removal of their badge.
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The change in the verification system has made it more challenging for users to access authoritative information during significant news events, such as the recent conflicts in Israel and Ukraine.
A recent study by media-rating service NewsGuard found that 74 percent of the worst Israel-Gaza misinformation on X originated from paid-for-blue “verified” accounts.
Musk has accused the New York Times of supporting “calls for genocide” and said that “if ever there was a time to cancel that publication, it is now.”
X previously also took the step of implementing a five-second delay for clicks to the Times’ website.
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Despite removing the delay for the Times, website traffic from X links has declined by approximately 50 percent since August.
After Musk acquired X, the platform has reduced content moderation, suspended journalists, reinstated neo-Nazi’s accounts, and threatened defamation lawsuits against critics.
This has resulted in a loss of users and advertisers.
Major news organizations, such as NPR, have also discontinued their presence on the platform.
