The White House has said it will not pay for its staff’s official Twitter account verification. In an email to the employees, White House’s director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty said that Twitter Blue does not provide personal level verification as a service as the blue check will just verify that the account is a paid user, Axios reported.
The email is critical because the official staffers at the White House rely on their verified accounts to circulate information on behalf of the administration.
The internal email doesn’t necessarily apply to government agencies, but a source familiar with White House plans said it may send guidance to some agencies and departments in the future.
While Twitter no longer provides a blue tickmark to mark an active subscription from April 1, some American news organizations have announced that they will not spend any penny for any type of subscription.
The New York Times says it is not intending to pay for Twitter verification. We aren’t planning to pay for the verification of our official Twitter accounts a spokesperson tells me”, senior journalist Oliver Darcy reported.
Even CNN and Washington Post have said they will not subscribe to Twitter Blue.
Earlier this month, Twitter owner Elon Musk declared that the social media platform will begin removing legacy verified checkmarks from April 1. It had been warning users to pay $8 monthly for verified blue ticks.
Twitter said that official organizations like the White House and some government officials will continue to have a grey checkmark. The White House digital director Flaherty in his email had quoted Twitter’s updated guidelines and said that Twitter will not be able to guarantee verification for federal agency accounts not fulfilling its eligibility requirements
