It is revealed that X (formerly Twitter) suddenly removed the 'verified' badge from the New York Times account

X (formerly Twitter) gives some corporate accounts a golden verified badge (checkmark). However, it has been reported that X removed the verified badge from the account held by the American newspaper company

Silicon Valley Ditches News, Shaking an Unstable Industry - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/technology/news-social-media-traffic.html

As Google pushes deeper into AI, publishers see fresh challenges | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-pushes-deeper-into-ai-publishers-see-fresh-challenges-2023-10-19/

X provides some corporate accounts with a gold verified badge to indicate that the account is an organization account that has been officially verified by X.

The New York Times similarly had a gold verified badge, which was a way to tell which accounts were genuine and which were impersonators. However, on October 17, 2023, X suddenly removed the New York Times verified badge. A New York Times spokesperson said, ``X has not provided any explanation for the removal of the gold verified badge.''

Meanwhile, the New York Times' X account has been given a blue verified badge since October 19, 2023. In addition, The New York Times' competitors, including The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , and The Associated Press , maintain gold verified badges.

Regarding the New York Times, when X announced in April 2023 that only subscribers to the paid subscription service 'X Blue' could maintain verified badges, the New York Times reported that 'Retain verified badges' I have no intention of joining X Blue to do so.' In response to this, Elon Musk, then CEO of .

The New York Times says it is not willing to pay to maintain Twitter's verified badge - GIGAZINE

Later, in late April 2023, X re -granted verified badges to media outlets and celebrities whose verified badges had once been removed, and at that time, the New York Times account also received a verified badge. is making a comeback.

On the other hand, it has been reported since around August 2023 that X has been intentionally slowing down access speeds to media and platforms such as the New York Times, Reuters, Substack, and Facebook.

It is revealed that X (formerly Twitter) intentionally slows down access to Threads, The New York Times, Bluesky, etc. - GIGAZINE

Intentionally delaying the loading time of a link increases the likelihood that readers will abandon your site, leading to a decrease in traffic. In addition, information media such as the New York Times are blocking access to bots that use generative AI such as ChatGPT to collect information, and as a result, traffic from X to the New York Times has decreased by approximately 50%. It has been reported that.

Another big news item here: Since August, when we reported on X's five-second delay for @nytimes links, traffic from X to NYT has plunged *50%*.

Massive drop for X's 25th-biggest account that outpaces industry-wide slide

— Drew Harwell (@drewharwell) October 19, 2023

In addition, neither X nor Mr. Mask left any comments regarding the New York Times' verified badge.