Pope Francis, Ronaldo Lose Twitter Verified Blue Status, Others Keep It

Al-Nassr's Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to a missed chance during the Saudi Pro League football match between Al-Fayha and Al-Nassr at the al-Majmaah stadium in the city of al-Majmaah on April 9, 2023. (AFP)
Al-Nassr's Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to a missed chance during the Saudi Pro League football match between Al-Fayha and Al-Nassr at the al-Majmaah stadium in the city of al-Majmaah on April 9, 2023. (AFP)
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Pope Francis, Ronaldo Lose Twitter Verified Blue Status, Others Keep It

Al-Nassr's Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to a missed chance during the Saudi Pro League football match between Al-Fayha and Al-Nassr at the al-Majmaah stadium in the city of al-Majmaah on April 9, 2023. (AFP)
Al-Nassr's Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo reacts to a missed chance during the Saudi Pro League football match between Al-Fayha and Al-Nassr at the al-Majmaah stadium in the city of al-Majmaah on April 9, 2023. (AFP)

Twitter on Thursday began removing legacy blue checkmarks from user profiles, with famous people including Pope Francis, Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates and Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo losing their verified status.

Under Elon Musk's ownership, Twitter has changed how it hands out the coveted blue checkmarks, previously given to noted individuals, journalists, executives, politicians and establishments after verifying their identities. They served as a mark of authenticity.

Musk said in November that Twitter will begin charging $8 per month for the badge in an effort to launch more revenue streams beyond advertising. The company later offered checkmarks in other colors - gold for businesses and a gray for government and multilateral organizations and officials.

The pope, who lost the blue tick on Thursday, was later given the gray verification checkmark by Twitter.

The Vatican, which was taken by surprise, said in a statement that it was aware that Twitter was making changes but noted that the pope had more than 53 million followers on his @Pontifex accounts in various languages.

"While awaiting to know the platform's new policies, the Holy See hopes they will include certification of the authenticity of the accounts," it said.

Some personalities such as basketball star LeBron James and author Stephen King still had their blue checkmarks, apparently courtesy of Musk himself.

"The Shining" author King, who has previously called Musk a terrible fit for Twitter, tweeted: "My Twitter account says I've subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven't. My Twitter account says I've given a phone number. I haven't."

Musk tweeted back to him: "You're welcome namaste," with a hands folded emoji.

The Verge reported that James, who has previously said he would not pay for verification, had not paid to keep the checkmark.

Musk tweeted separately: "I'm paying for a few personally." and later tweeted "Just Shatner, LeBron and King," referring to Star Trek actor William Shatner, who had last month complained about being forced to pay to keep his blue checkmark.

Among those losing their badges were former US President Donald Trump and reality TV star Kim Kardashian.

Twitter on Friday also dropped the "government-funded" label from the accounts of US-based National Public Radio (NPR), British Broadcasting Corp and public broadcaster Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

It dropped the "China state-affiliated media" tag on the accounts of Xinhua News as well as of journalists associated with government-backed publications.

NPR stopped posting content on its 52 official Twitter feeds after the social networking company labeled it "state-affiliated media" and later "government-funded media".

CBC also paused its activities on Twitter and sparred with Musk over the platform's definition of "government-funded".



China's Baidu Launches Two New AI Models as Industry Competition Heats Up

People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
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China's Baidu Launches Two New AI Models as Industry Competition Heats Up

People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)
People walk past a Baidu logo outside the company headquarters in Beijing on February 2, 2024. (AFP)

China's Baidu said on Sunday it has launched two new artificial intelligence models, including a new reasoning-focused model that it said rivalled DeepSeek's model, as it vies to stand out in a fiercely competitive AI race.

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek's roll-out of AI models which it says is on par with, or even better than, industry-leading models in the United States at a fraction of the cost, has roiled the industry and re-energized the global AI race.

"ERNIE X1 delivers performance on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price," Baidu said of one of the new models.

The X1 has "stronger understanding, planning, reflection, and evolution capabilities," Baidu said, adding that it is the first deep thinking model that uses tools autonomously.

Baidu said its latest foundation model ERNIE 4.5 has "excellent multimodal understanding ability. It has more advanced language ability, and its understanding, generation, logic, and memory abilities are comprehensively improved."

It also has "high EQ", and it is easy to understand network memes and satirical cartoons, Baidu said.

One of China's earliest tech giants to launch a ChatGPT-style chatbot, Baidu has struggled to gain widespread adoption for its Ernie large language model, despite claiming performance comparable to OpenAI's GPT-4, amid fierce competition.

Multimodal AI systems are capable of processing and integrating various types of data including text, video, images and audio, and can convert content across these formats.