Twitter has long been a way for people to keep track of tornado watches, train delays, news alerts or the latest crime warnings from their local police department. But when the Elon Musk-owned platform started stripping blue verification checkmarks this week from accounts that don't pay a monthly fee, it left public agencies and other organizations around the world scrambling to figure out a way to show they're trustworthy and avoid impersonators.
Last Updated Friday, April 21, 2023 3:17PM EDT
Twitter had roughly 400,000 verified users under the original blue-check system. In the past, the checks meant that Twitter had verified that users were who they said they were. A number of agencies said they were awaiting more clarity from Twitter, which has sharply curtailed its staff since Musk bought the San Francisco company for $44 billion last year. The confusion has raised concerns that Twitter could lose its status as a platform for getting accurate, up-to-date information from authentic sources, including in emergencies.
Celebrity users, from basketball star LeBron James to author Stephen King and Star Trek's William Shatner, have balked at joining - although all three still had blue checks on Friday after Musk said he paid for them himself. Promised for weeks, the mass removal of thousands of blue checks was paired with a surprise move to drop labels describing some media organizations as government-funded or state-affiliated. Musk at first defended a policy that lumped public radio and TV stations in the U.S. and other democracies with state-affiliated media inand China, and then abruptly changed the language, but now Twitter has removed the labels entirely without explanation.
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