EDITORIAL: Paying for Twitter verification badges doesn’t benefit journalism

Apr 5, 2023 | Editorial, OP-ED

Elon Musk’s Twitter plans to charge each institutional account $1,000 a month for a gold verification badge. Bluecheck marks are also up for sale to individual accounts for $10 per month.

Media outlets and individual journalists who have been accustomed to the platform are facing a dilemma – either pay or lose their verified status.

But the answer is clear. Paying for these checkmarks just isn’t worth the money.

Twitter announced the policy change on March 24, 2023. The company said starting April 1, 2023, it will phase out old checkmarks that were based on a manual review of authenticity instead of being based on money.

It also said starting April 13, the “for you” tab will only show content from Twitter gold and blue subscribers, as well as accounts followed by individuals.

Individual users and organizations who haven’t paid found out on April 1 that they still have their old checkmarks.

The only exception is the New York Times. Musk said he stripped the outlet of its gold badge following a tweet from DogeDesigner.

Some other outlets in the U.S., including the Washington Post, have said they won’t subscribe to gold or blue checkmarks with their company accounts or those of their journalists.

The Toronto Star reported Tuesday it has made the same decision. The Globe and Mail has yet to respond to an inquiry from Humber News on the issue.

It isn’t surprising many media outlets are against Twitter’s new subscription-based verification system.

Twitter has seen a surge in misinformation since Musk took over the platform, according to statistics compiled by data scientist Bastien Carniel.

Accounts which repeatedly publish popular tweets linked to misinformation, also known as misinformation super spreaders, saw an average increase of 42.4 per cent in their engagement, Carniel said.

He said highly credible accounts, like those of established media outlets, suffered a decline of 6.3 per cent on average, even before Twitter announced its plan to remove old verification badges.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit organization based in the U.K. and the U.S., said the platform has also experienced a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

CCDH said in a report published in March, that five influential accounts, four of them being Twitter gold or blue subscribers, were the main drivers of the 119 per cent increase in hate speech targeting LGBTQ+ since last November.

The report also said the five accounts alone can generate up to US$6.4 million per year in advertising revenue for the platform.

Another report published by CCDH in February said Twitter could make an additional US$19 million in advertising revenue by bringing back previously banned accounts.

The ugly truth is Musk’s Twitter no longer promotes content based on authenticity or credibility and instead focuses on what can bring in the most money.

Twitter has undeniably played an important role in journalism. A survey by Pew Research Center in 2021 showed seven out of 10 Americans consume news on the platform, particularly breaking news.

The same survey showed two-thirds of Americans trusted information on Twitter, significantly higher than the 27 per cent figure for social media in general.

But this trust will be eroded as Twitter changes its direction moving forward.

Media outlets and journalists, even if they subscribe to Twitter gold and blue, can’t compete with misinformation and hate speech super spreaders who generate much more engagement and money.

It will be a painful decision to make, but it appears time for journalism to give up on this new Twitter that no longer values its work.