Twitter removes state-affiliated media tag after blue check purge

Twitter has removed state-affiliated media tags on certain accounts following a purge of legacy verified users in an effort to push Twitter Blue.

Social media platform Twitter has undergone significant change since being purchased by Elon Musk last year. After months of waiting, the platform has now purged all “Legacy” verified users, which includes influencers, celebrities, and news outlets in a bid to increase the number of Twitter Blue subscribers.

AFP reports that the “government-funded” tag has also disappeared, with affected accounts such as the BBC no longer displaying the tag. This could potentially obfuscate where news outlets affiliations might lie, providing wider context to users about their accounts, and how the respective companies are now run, as well as losing their blue verified checkmarks.

Is Twitter going to bring back the tags?

Wikimedia/Twitter

It’s unlikely that this change will be reversed. It appears that the push is part of a wider strategy from Twitter to entice its users to use Twitter Blue, which includes branded accounts. Twitter Blue offers gold checkmarks for brands, with the ability to affiliate certain accounts under the wider brand umbrella, offering a small logo next to their checkmark, for a fee.

Any organization involved with government or “multilateral” organizations will be displayed with a grey checkmark, which could be one way that the social media giant is looking to distinguish state-affiliated accounts on the platform itself.

However, getting access to this is not free. A Twitter Verified Organizations subscription is $1000/month, with an additional $50/month.

Organizations that might not want to subscribe have had public spats with the platform, such as the New York Times. Twitter owner Musk called the outlet “propaganda”.

Ironically, under Twitter’s new attitude towards media outlets, it cannot be marked as such on the platform without the outlet having to pay for it. This has not stopped Musk from paying for Twitter verification for certain celebrities.