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Twitter has removed the verification check mark on the main account of The New York Times, one of CEO Elon Musk’s most despised news organizations.

The removal comes as many of Twitter’s high-profile users are bracing for the loss of the blue check marks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the social media platform.

Musk, who owns Twitter, set a deadline of Saturday for verified users to buy a premium Twitter subscription or lose the checks on their profiles. The Times said in a story Thursday that it would not pay Twitter for verification of its institutional accounts.

Early Sunday, Musk tweeted that the Times’ check mark would be removed. Later he posted disparaging remarks about the newspaper, which has aggressively reported on Twitter and on flaws with partially automated driving systems at Tesla, the electric car company, which he also runs.

Other Times accounts such as its business news and opinion pages still had either blue or gold check marks Sunday, as did multiple reporters for the news organization.

“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for check mark status for our institutional Twitter accounts,” the Times said in a statement Sunday. “We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes,” the newspaper said in a statement Sunday.

The Associated Press, which has said it also will not pay for the check marks, still had them on its accounts at midday Sunday.

Twitter did not answer emailed questions Sunday about the removal of The New York Times check mark.

The costs of keeping the check marks ranges from $8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to verify an organization, plus $50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account. Twitter does not verify the individual accounts to ensure they are who they say they are, as was the case with the previous blue check doled out to public figures and others during the platform’s pre-Musk administration.

While the cost of Twitter Blue subscriptions might seem like nothing for Twitter’s most famous commentators, celebrity users from basketball star LeBron James to Star Trek’s William Shatner have balked at joining. Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander pledged to leave the platform if Musk takes his blue check away.

The White House is also passing on enrolling in premium accounts, according to a memo sent to staff. While Twitter has granted a free gray mark for President Joe Biden and members of his Cabinet, lower-level staff won’t get Twitter Blue benefits unless they pay for it themselves.

“If you see impersonations that you believe violate Twitter’s stated impersonation policies, alert Twitter using Twitter’s public impersonation portal,” said the staff memo from White House official Rob Flaherty.

Alexander, the actor, said there are bigger issues in the world but without the blue mark, “anyone can allege to be me” so if he loses it, he’s gone.

“Anyone appearing with it=an imposter. I tell you this while I’m still official,” he tweeted.

After buying Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others granted verification for free by Twitter’s previous leadership.

Along with shielding celebrities from impersonators, one of Twitter’s main reasons to mark profiles with a blue check mark starting about 14 years ago was to verify politicians, activists and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, as an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts that are impersonating people. Most “legacy blue checks” are not household names and weren’t meant to be.

One of Musk’s first product moves after taking over Twitter was to launch a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. But it was quickly inundated by impostor accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter had to temporarily suspend the service days after its launch.

The relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for users of its iPhone or Android apps. Subscribers are supposed to see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos and have their tweets featured more prominently. 
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Scaffolding and green pipes envelop a refinery in the port of Rotterdam where Finnish giant Neste is preparing to significantly boost production of sustainable aviation fuel. 

Switching to non-fossil aviation fuels that produce less net greenhouse gas emissions is key to plans to decarbonize air transport, a significant contributor to global warming. 

Neste, the largest global producer of SAF, uses cooking oil and animal fat at this Dutch refinery. 

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) are being made from different sources such as municipal waste, leftovers from the agricultural and forestry industry, crops and plants, and even hydrogen. 

These technologies are still developing, and the product is more expensive. 

But these fuels will help airlines reduce CO2 emissions by up to 80%, according to the International Air Transport Association. 

Global output of SAF was 250,000 tons last year, less than 0.1% of the more than 300 million tons of aviation fuel used during that period. 

“It’s a drop in the ocean but a significant drop,” said Matti Lehmus, CEO of Neste. 

“We’ll be growing drastically our production from 100,000 tons to 1.5 million tons next year,” he added. 

There clearly is demand. 

The European Union plans to impose the use of a minimum amount of sustainable aviation fuel by airlines, rising from 2% in 2025 to 6% in 2030 and at least 63% in 2050. 

Neste has another site for SAF in Singapore which will start production in April. 

“With the production facilities of Neste in Rotterdam and Singapore, we can meet the mandate for [the] EU in 2025,” said Jonathan Wood, the company’s vice president for renewable aviation. 

Vincent Etchebehere, director for sustainable development at Air France, said that “between now and 2030, there will be more demand than supply of SAF.” 

Need to mature technologies 

Air France-KLM has reached a deal with Neste for a supply of 1 million tons of sustainable aviation fuel between 2023 and 2030. 

It has also lined up 10 year-agreements with U.S. firm DG Fuels for 600,000 tons and with TotalEnergies for 800,000 tons. 

At the Rotterdam site, two giant storage tanks of 15,000 cubic meters are yet to be painted. 

They’re near a quay where the fuel will be transported by boat to feed Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and airports in Paris. 

The Franco-Dutch group has already taken steps to cut its carbon footprint, using 15% of the global SAF output last year — or 0.6% of its fuel needs. 

Neste’s Lehmus said there was a great need to “mature the technologies” to make sustainable aviation fuel from diverse sources such as algae, nitrocellulose and synthetic fuels. 

Air France CEO Anne Rigail said, the prices of sustainable aviation fuel were as important as their production. 

Sustainable fuel costs 3,500 euros ($3,800) a ton globally but only $2,000 in the United States thanks to government subsidies. In France, it costs 5,000 euros a ton. 

“We need backing and we really think the EU can do more,” said Rigail. 
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The administrator of the National Energy Administration of China, Zhang Jinhua, on Friday paid a visit to Namibia President Hage Geingob. The visit is aimed at establishing cooperation in the area of green hydrogen production.

Namibia is positioning itself as a future green hydrogen producer to attract investment from the globe’s leading and fastest growing producer of renewable energy — China.

James Mnyupe, Namibia’s green hydrogen commissioner and economic adviser to the president, told VOA that although Namibia has not signed a partnership with China on green hydrogen, officials are looking to the Asian country as a critical partner. But it isn’t talking to China alone.

“We have an MOU [Memo of Understanding] with Europe; we are also discussing possibilities of collaboration with the United States,” he said. “If you look at any of these green hydrogen projects as I mentioned, simply they will use components from all over the world.”

He said in the face of rising energy demands around the globe and increased tensions between the East and West, Namibia will not be drawn into picking sides. He was referring to the conflict in Ukraine and its effect on international relations

“So today Europe’s biggest trading partner is China, China’s biggest markets are the U.S. and Europe so if Namibia trades with Europe, China or the U.S. for that matter, that is not a reason for involving Namibia in any political or conflict-related discussions between those countries,” he said.

Presidential spokesperson Alfredo Hengari said the visit by U.S. Ambassador to Namibia Randy Berry on Tuesday was aimed at cementing relations in major areas of interest, among them green hydrogen and oil exploration.

“Namibia is making tremendous advances in the areas of green energy but also in hydrocarbons,” he said. “American companies are drilling off the coast of the Republic of Namibia and so it was a courtesy visit just to emphasize increasing cooperation in these areas.”

Speaking through an interpreter, China’s administrator for its National Energy Administration on Friday said China is ready to partner with Namibia in all areas of green hydrogen.

Hydrogen is an alternative fuel that industrialized nations hope can help them reach their ambitious goal of net-zero carbon emission by 2050.

Mnyupe says Namibia is looking to learn from China on how best to use its experience in producing renewable energy and renewable energy components. Friday’s visit is an indication of China’s interest in partnering with Namibia and participating in the countries green-hydrogen value chain.
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Italy is temporarily blocking the artificial intelligence software ChatGPT in the wake of a data breach as it investigates a possible violation of stringent European Union data protection rules, the government’s privacy watchdog said Friday.

The Italian Data Protection Authority said it was taking provisional action “until ChatGPT respects privacy,” including temporarily limiting the company from processing Italian users’ data.

U.S.-based OpenAI, which developed the chatbot, said late Friday night it has disabled ChatGPT for Italian users at the government’s request. The company said it believes its practices comply with European privacy laws and hopes to make ChatGPT available again soon.

While some public schools and universities around the world have blocked ChatGPT from their local networks over student plagiarism concerns, Italy’s action is “the first nation-scale restriction of a mainstream AI platform by a democracy,” said Alp Toker, director of the advocacy group NetBlocks, which monitors internet access worldwide.

The restriction affects the web version of ChatGPT, popularly used as a writing assistant, but is unlikely to affect software applications from companies that already have licenses with OpenAI to use the same technology driving the chatbot, such as Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

The AI systems that power such chatbots, known as large language models, are able to mimic human writing styles based on the huge trove of digital books and online writings they have ingested.

The Italian watchdog said OpenAI must report within 20 days what measures it has taken to ensure the privacy of users’ data or face a fine of up to either 20 million euros (nearly $22 million) or 4% of annual global revenue.

The agency’s statement cites the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation and pointed to a recent data breach involving ChatGPT “users’ conversations” and information about subscriber payments.

OpenAI earlier announced that it had to take ChatGPT offline on March 20 to fix a bug that allowed some people to see the titles, or subject lines, of other users’ chat history.

“Our investigation has also found that 1.2% of ChatGPT Plus users might have had personal data revealed to another user,” the company had said. “We believe the number of users whose data was actually revealed to someone else is extremely low and we have contacted those who might be impacted.”

Italy’s privacy watchdog, known as the Garante, also questioned whether OpenAI had legal justification for its “massive collection and processing of personal data” used to train the platform’s algorithms. And it said ChatGPT can sometimes generate — and store — false information about individuals.

Finally, it noted there’s no system to verify users’ ages, exposing children to responses “absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness.”

OpenAI said in response that it works “to reduce personal data in training our AI systems like ChatGPT because we want our AI to learn about the world, not about private individuals.”

“We also believe that AI regulation is necessary — so we look forward to working closely with the Garante and educating them on how our systems are built and used,” the company said.

The Italian watchdog’s move comes as concerns grow about the artificial intelligence boom. A group of scientists and tech industry leaders published a letter Wednesday calling for companies such as OpenAI to pause the development of more powerful AI models until the fall to give time for society to weigh the risks.

The president of Italy’s privacy watchdog agency told Italian state TV Friday evening he was one of those who signed the appeal. Pasquale Stanzione said he did so because “it’s not clear what aims are being pursued” ultimately by those developing AI.
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