Verified journalists who use Twitter have always been able to use their personal accounts interchangeably for business without being directly tied to their employer. According to the Press Gazette, a new feature being tested would make that distinction nearly impossible.
The Daily Mirror’s parent company Reach is working with Twitter to test a feature that would place the media organization’s logo right next to the account holder’s Blue check mark. The experiment involves several Mirror journalists including Alison Phillips, Lizzy Buchan, Jason Beattie, and Mikey Smith. Readers who click on the company’s logo are directed back to the brand’s official account.
“So far it’s been a useful tool for us – making it clearer that our smaller accounts and affiliated journalists are trustworthy sources which are verifiably connected to the Mirror brand,” said Reach head of social, Yara Silva.
Twitter has been under scrutiny since Elon Musk purchased the platform last year. According to media reports, Musk’s final purchase price of the company was around $44 billion. Since the purchase, Musk has introduced new initiatives to make the company both profitable and more trustworthy. Some pundits see misinformation as the biggest hurdle facing Twitter.
According to Nieman Lab, another interesting point about this latest test feature are the discussions that are bound to happen in newsrooms across the world. If a reporter has an account name that his/her employer objects to, will that journalist be forced to start a new account? Also, if an employee changes jobs, what happens to their followers?
A lawsuit brought by The Roanoke Times nearly five years ago sought to regain custody of a former sports reporter’s Twitter account when he left for The Athletic. Andy Bitter inherited the account from his predecessor. The account had accumulated more than 27,000 followers.
The biggest question about this proposed feature is if it takes effect, will media organizations have intellectual property rights over their employee’s Twitter accounts. The feature is part of what was previously Twitter Blue for Business and is now known as Twitter Verification for Organizations.
