The thin-skinned billionaire owner of Xitter unexpectedly removed The New York Times's gold verification badge yesterday, making it more difficult for the platform's dwindling viewership to distinguish between the paper's account and imposter accounts.
"The move further extends Musk's attempts to use the social media company he bought with claims of defending free speech to undercut news organizations he dislikes," reports The Washington Post, which still has a gold checkmark. "It also suggests Musk has adopted the kinds of secretive social media tactics he and Twitter's conservative critics once loudly denounced."
The article also describes other changes to Xitter that make the site worse for readers. It has instituted a five-second delay on clicks to sites outside of Xitter for many accounts, and it has removed headlines from news articles mentioned in Xitter posts.
