NTV Keeps Twitter Blue Tick, Nation Loses In Elon Musk Mass Purge

Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk on Thursday, April 20 honoured his threat of revoking legacy blue checkmarks from accounts that had them on the platform, which means users who have been having the blue tick for free will have to pay per month to keep their status.

After initially pushing the date of the mass purge from Saturday, April 1, the social media giant began deleting all legacy blue checkmarks, with users crying foul of losing their verification status which was only reserved for journalists, celebrities and politicians among others.

Kenyan media houses were not spared with nearly all of the local media houses losing their legacy blue checkmarks, according to spot checks by Viral Tea. However, one of the media channels that did not lose its checkmark was NTV.

Divide at Nation Media?

Viral Tea checked the status of NTV's blue checkmark which read "This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number." In comparison, Daily Nation, Nation Breaking News and Nairobi News all lost their blue checkmarks.

Screenshot of NTV with Twitter's blue checkmark. /VIRALTEAKE

It is worth it to note that both Daily Nation and NTV, as well as Nairobi News, are owned by the Nation Media Group (NMG), thus raising the question of why the media house did not consider in advance to pay for the media channels' accounts to retain their verified status, which NMG's corporate Twitter account has also retained.

Sources who had previously spoken to Viral Tea had disclosed that Nation and NTV have their own departments in separate sections of the Twin Towers building in the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD), their headquarters, though it still would not be a reason as to why the media house opted to preserve the verification of one of its channels.

It would thus be for NMG to decide whether or not to spend Ksh131,300 per month plus another Ksh6,570 per month for affiliated accounts like customer care or employees' accounts, with either NTV or Nation.Africa getting the gold tick and the other media channels becoming affiliate accounts.

Journalists, Celebrities, Govt Accounts

Musk's ruthless purge of legacy blue ticks also affected government Twitter accounts such as the Ministries of Interior and Health, among others as well as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) with over 1.4 million followers, the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) and Kenya Power. In the private sector, Safaricom lost its verification on its customer care page with 1.6 million followers.

The purge also affected thousands of prominent journalists including CNN news anchor Larry Madowo and a number of Citizen TV journalists such as Waihiga Mwaura, with the former previously declaring that he would not pay to keep his badge.

"My 'legacy verified' checkmark is gone. Still not paying. This was fun," Madowo tweeted moments after losing his blue badge.

"Can’t pay, won’t pay for Twitter blue! Verification lost its meaning if anyone can get it!" sports journalist Eric Njiru defiantly tweeted.

Madowo had previously highlighted the risk of identity theft and other malicious activities that could arise if anyone could create an account in his name and get it verified at a fee

"I have no plans to pay for Twitter Blue at this time, and neither does CNN. Twitter says my blue checkmark will soon disappear after 12 years of being verified.

"Anyone will be able to create an account in my name and get it verified for $8. What could possibly go wrong?" Madowo tweeted.

Twitter user Sylvia Ndunge opined that the presence of an increased number of blue ticks on user profiles could increase misinformation spread across the platform, her view which was covered extensively by Viral Tea.

Read Also: How Several Kenyans With Twitter Blue Ticks Could Spread Fake News

The controversial purge, which has created a scene of ugliness, chaos and rebellion on Twitter, has seen hundreds of notable names, celebrities, journalists and global stars refuse to yield to Musk's demands.

Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber, Bill Gates, US former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Pope Francis, Cristiano Ronaldo, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Oprah Winfrey among others all lost their blue checkmarks.

Screenshot of Cristiano Ronaldo's official Twitter account without the blue checkmark. /VIRALTEAKE

Chelsea midfielder Mason Mount announced that he was quitting the platform owing to the changes.

"Over the years I’ve thoroughly enjoyed connecting with you all on Twitter. Sadly, the platform is changing so I have decided to delete my account. You all can still connect with me on my other social media platforms here: http://masonmount.Komi.io Take care, Mason," he tweeted.

Musk's Threat

Since purchasing Twitter in 2022 for Ksh5.1 trillion, Musk repeatedly threatened to take away verification badges from non-paying users, claiming the old verification system was “corrupt.”

Through his new system dubbed Twitter Blue, individual users will have to pay Ksh1,419 every month or Ksh14,830 every year to regain their verified status with organizations having to spend more than Ksh131,000 a month.

Users who are part of paying organizations can also be verified by being associated with them. The 10,000 most-followed organizations and hundreds of Twitter’s top advertisers will reportedly be exempt from having to pay to keep their verification.

Twitter Blue also provides subscribers with a feed with fewer ads and the ability to edit and write longer tweets. However, its initial pay-for-verification program, launched last year, allowed impersonators to wreak havoc on the site, which forced Twitter to give some organizations yellow checkmarks.