No thanks, Twitter: White House, NYT, Lebron James, and others reject paying for blue tick

But the status of the gold checkmark for verified organisations is still up in the air. While Twitter announced its new Verified Organisations feature, a report by The Information suggests that the Elon Musk-led company is asking organisations to pay $1,000 per month for the gold checkmark.

This is consistent with a screenshot posted by social media consultant and industry analyst Matt Navarra on Twitter. The screenshot is purportedly an email sent by a Twitter product manager to an unnamed business.

Twitter is reportedly emailing businesses offering gold check mark verification for $1000 PER MONTH!

And affiliate account verification for $50 each per month pic.twitter.com/hohTPKLKdi

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) February 3, 2023

In it, Twitter seems to be asking the business to pay $1,000 per month for the Verified Organisations program, and $50 extra for additional affiliated handles. In the same thread, Navarra posted a screenshot that seemed to show a DM to a Twitter product manager confirming the $1,000 monthly fee.

Here are some of the organisations and celebrities refusing to pay for the subscription on the social media platform.

White House refuses to pay for Twitter

According to an Axios report, the White House will not pay to have its staff’s official Twitter profiles verified.

“It is our understanding that Twitter Blue does not provide person-level verification as a service. Thus, a blue check mark will now simply serve as a verification that the account is a paid user,” White House director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty told staffers in an email sent Friday afternoon, according to the publication.

New York Times, Washington Post, and other publications won’t pay for Twitter Blue

According to CNN’s Oliver Darcy, The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Vox Media, BuzzFeed and other publications will not pay for their journalists to be verified on the platform.

New: The New York Times says it is not planning to pay for Twitter verification:

“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for verification of our institutional Twitter accounts,” a spokesperson tells me.

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 30, 2023

“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for verification of our institutional Twitter accounts. We also will not reimburse reporters for the verification of personal accounts, except in rare instances where the verified status would be essential for reporting purposes,” said an NYT spokesperson to Oliver Darcy.

Most of the publications in Darcy’s had a justification similar to the one presented by the White House–that a blue checkmark does not mean that somebody is verified on the platform. Vox Media added that they will continue to take advantage of legacy account verification when provided to brand accounts.

Lebron James

While celebrated basketball player Lebron James might seem out of place in a list that is populated by institutions like the White House and The New York Times, that is not necessarily the case here.

The official white house Twitter account has 8.5 million followers, while Lebron James has more than 52.8 million followers at the time of writing. James took to his Twitter account yesterday to proclaim that he won’t be paying 5 dollars for Twitter Blue. We know this is Lebron James’s account because he still has a legacy blue checkmark.

The service actually costs $8 a month for individuals, but this doesn’t mean much to one of the greatest basketball players of all time, who is also a billionaire.

Welp guess my blue ✔️ will be gone soon cause if you know me I ain’t paying the 5. 🤷🏾‍♂️

— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 31, 2023

But there is a real reason why James’s refusal stands out in this list. It is because it may not have much to do with pragmatism or an ethical viewpoint. As reported by CNBC, James admits to being the “cheapest guy in the NBA” (The US National Basketball Association). He also reportedly does not spend money on music streaming apps or data roaming.

Twitter backtracks, slightly

This “backlash” seems to have Twitter turning around in its tracks. According to The New York Times, Twitter is continuing with its plan to charge organisations $1,000 per month for the verified tag, but it could make exemptions for the top 500 advertisers on the platform and 10,000 most followed organisations that have previously been verified.