Elon Musk escalates his ongoing dispute with the New York Times after the newspaper’s X account unexpectedly and mysteriously loses its gold verification badge.
Traditional media accounts like the New York Times have received gold badges as a result of Musk’s recent purchase of Twitter. Using these badges, you can tell real accounts from bogus ones. However, Musk’s claim that the Times supported “calls for genocide” during the Israel-Hamas war led to the revocation of the paper’s gold badge.
“[I]f ever there was a time to cancel that publication, it is now,” he added.
The Times initially blamed Israel based only on Palestinian sources when there was confusion over who was to blame for a hospital bombing in Gaza. However, later information made public by Israel and verified by American intelligence services suggested that Hamas had accidentally fired a rocket, which resulted in the explosion. The Times was forced to make numerous revisions to its title in order to reflect the truth.
Elon Musk’s request that the Times be canceled led to X implementing a big change. When using this platform, users now encounter a five-second delay when browsing Times stories. The Washington Post quoted reputable sources that said that the Times’ traffic from X has decreased by 50% since August. According to Musk, this modification is intended to encourage visitors to stay on X rather than switching to other websites.
The businessman has begun a comprehensive campaign to address these issues in reaction to media sources characterizing his actions as a right-wing coup and charging him with inciting bigotry. He denies any involvement in undermining these publications’ capacity to report without being interrupted by fictitious accounts.
When asked about his critique of the free press, Musk responded ironically by calling them “real journalists.”
In April, NPR, the top channel for mainstream media, made news by severing ties with X and Twitter. Elon Musk called the group “state-sponsored media,” a term often used to refer to media organizations tied to countries like China or Russia. This action followed his declaration. Despite the fact that NPR and the platform have subsequently reconnected, this occurrence generated a lot of discussion.
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Following Musk’s reaction, conservative journalists like Tucker Carlson have embraced his more lenient content guidelines. This change has significantly helped Carlson, who has done it on multiple occasions, top the ratings of Fox News, his old employer.
