The New York Times has lost its verified Twitter badge, after attracting the ire of billionaire owner Elon Musk and refusing to pay for the privilege.
The main Times account, which has about 55 million followers, no longer bears a verification check mark, although several of its subsection accounts remain verified.
The newspaper was among the first major news publications to say it would not pay a fee to have its Twitter accounts verified.
Photo: AFP
Musk, who has been promulgating a US$8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription as the main way to remain verified on the social network, responded by lashing out at the paper, which charges for its own subscription service.
He called the publication hypocritical and characterized its coverage as “propaganda.”
Twitter said it would begin removing unpaid verification marks from April 1. In a now-deleted Twitter post, Musk suggested his company would give “a few weeks grace” to accounts not yet paying to retain their status, with only those that confirm they would not pay being stripped. It is unclear if that still holds true.
“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for check mark status for our institutional Twitter accounts,” a New York Times spokesperson said, adding it would only reimburse reporters for using Twitter Blue “in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes.”
Many users with the blue check — typically given to major news sources, celebrities and political figures — have pushed back against the move to charge for it.
Other news organizations such as CNN, the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg said they do not plan to pay for Twitter verification.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
RSS