Musk says the ‘NYTimes blurb isn’t even interesting’ and his Twitter account is the ‘equivalent of diarrhea’ as he takes a jab at Gray Lady after she refused to pay an $8 monthly verification fee
- Elon Musk criticized The New York Times for publishing boring ‘propaganda’
- The attack comes just as Twitter removed gold verification from the newspaper.
- Musk also called his Twitter feed ‘diarrhea’ because he posts too often.
Elon Musk launched another attack on The New York Times just as Twitter removed the verified checkmark from the post.
In several tweets, he said the publication was guilty of posting boring “advertising” and called its feed like “diarrhea” because it posted too many tweets.
‘The real tragedy of [The New York Times] it’s that their propaganda isn’t even interesting,’ Musk wrote early Sunday morning. “Plus, his feed is the Twitter equivalent of diarrhea. It is unreadable,” he added.
It comes after Twitter announced it would change its policy by removing “legacy” checkmarks historically given to verified accounts and public figures. The Times was one of the first victims to miss its check mark on Sunday.
Last Thursday, the publication said it would not pay for a verified badge for its institutional accounts, including @nytimes. He also told all of his journalists that he would not reimburse them for the cost of verifying their personal accounts unless it was crucial to reporting.
Elon Musk launched another attack on The New York Times just as Twitter removed the verified checkmark from the post.
The Times’ main account has 54.9 million Twitter followers and is the most prominent account yet to lose its gold institutional verification.
In multiple tweets early on Sunday morning, he said the publication was guilty of posting boring ‘propaganda’ and said its feed was like ‘diarrhea’ because it posted too many tweets.
The Times’ main account has 54.9 million Twitter followers and is the most prominent account yet to lose its gold institutional verification.
For a business on Twitter to be verified with a gold checkmark, it is required to pay $1,000 each month. For individual users the cost is $8 per month.
Musk extended his criticism of how the Times handles its Twitter account to other publications as well. ‘[The Times] You would have a lot more real followers if they only posted your best articles. The same applies to all posts,’ he said.
You may have been referring to the way you post dozens of times on your Twitter page every day. On Saturday, his main account @nytimes posted around 80 tweets in a single day.
Tweets almost always contain links to stories on your website, a widely adopted practice among digital publications to drive traffic to their sites.
The Washington Post’s Twitter profile, which kept its gold check mark as of Sunday morning and has around 20 million followers, posts a very similar volume of tweets.
On Sunday morning, The New York Times’ main Twitter profile, @nytimes, was no longer emblazoned with a gold checkmark.
The Washington Post, which has more than 20 million Twitter followers, kept its gold check mark as of Sunday morning.
Several prominent figures have come out since the Twitter announcement to say they would not pay the verification fee.
Basketball player LeBron James said Friday that he would not pay the $8 fee. He tweeted: “Well I guess my blue tick will be gone soon because if you know me I won’t pay the five.”
James incorrectly thought it would cost him five dollars, but in reality the price is eight, and the feature, which is called ‘Twitter Blue’, is already available to users who are willing to pay for it.
Others, including Chrissy Teigen, Dionne Warwick and rapper Ice-T, also suggested they wouldn’t pay for the feature.
Last week, Musk overtook Barack Obama as the most followed Twitter user, with 133.08 million followers compared to Obama’s 133.04 million.
That came after reports that Twitter’s CEO ordered the company’s engineers to program the algorithm to “boost” his tweets.