NEW YORK: Twitter began the mass removal of its blue ticks on Thursday, as the symbol previously used to signify a verified account vanished from users including the Pope, Donald Trump and Justin Bieber.
Owner Elon Musk, who has seen his $44 billion investment in the site shrivel, earlier pledged to get rid of what he described as a “lords & peasants system.”
He offered instead to sell the blue badge to anyone who would pay $8 a month, in a move he said last year would “democratise journalism & em-power the voice of the people.” Earlier dates set for the rollback of the ticks — predominately used by celebrities, journalists, and politicians — have slipped by without noticeable action. But on Thursday high-profile accounts, as well as those of many reporters at AFP and other news organisations, appeared to have had the checkmarks removed. In Pakistan, Dawn.com, Geo News Urdu, and other media organisations lost their verified status. A number of well-known an-chors and reporters were also among them. Politicians and official bodies also appeared to have been hit. As of Friday, in Pakistan, popular accounts like PTI chairman Imran Khan’s, with 19.1m followers, lost their blue tick. PTI’s official account, however, retained it.
PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam and PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari were also among those who lost their verified status.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, however, retained his status with a grey check — which is for accounts that are linked to government organisations.
US Senator Brian Schatz objected to the possible effect on public confidence in the event of disasters.
“There really ought to be a way for emergency managers to verify that they are real on this website or imposters will cause suffering and death,” he tweeted.
“I am not complaining about my own check mark, I just think during natural disasters it’s essential to know that FEMA is actually FEMA,” he wrote, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency that steps in after hurricanes and deadly storms.
Thursday’s removals follow spats between Twitter and various news organisations that have objected to labels appended to their accounts indicating they were “state-affiliated” or “government funded.”
Sweden’s public radio Sveriges Radio said this week it would stop tweeting, following in the footsteps of US radio station NPR and Canadian broadcaster CBC. –Agencies
