During the weekend, as events out of Russia dominated the news cycle, I occasionally checked in on Twitter. But I realized what was once a go-to source during major breaking news stories has become less effective and impactful. Most of that has to do with not knowing who to trust on the social media site since it overhauled and undermined its verified blue check mark policy.
I then discovered that I was not alone in seeing the flaws of Twitter over the weekend.
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy tweeted on Saturday, “One notable thing about this rapidly developing international story: Since Elon Musk took a sledgehammer to Twitter’s verification system, the platform is far less useful during breaking news events, and so people are depending on traditional newsrooms for verifiable information.”
Media writer Evan DeSimone tweeted, “As many people have already pointed out, it’s amazing how useless Twitter now is during a major news event. A year ago this would have been my first stop.”
University of Texas at Austin journalism professor John Schwartz tweeted, “Yes, Musk has rendered Twitter useless for its greatest purpose: helping to quickly sift for the truth in fast-moving news storms. On the other hand The New York Times — you know, a professional news organization — is kicking ass.”
These are just a few of the comments that pointed out what is absolutely true: When it comes to major breaking news, Twitter is no longer the go-to source it used to be.
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