Twitter has announced to discontinue ad-free articles for its premium Blue subscribers under Elon Musk as new CEO.
The micro-blogging platform said that it made the decision
"to discontinue Ad-free Articles, effective as of close of business, on
October 31, 2022".
Twitter included ad-free articles when it rolled out its
Blue subscription last year for $4.99.
A portion of the revenue from Twitter Blue subscription fees
went directly to publishers within their network.
The feature was based on the platform Twitter acquired from
Scroll, a service that specialised in removing ads from news sites.
"We will stop displaying the 'Twitter Blue Publisher'
label on any tweets containing your articles. We will no longer be sending a
Twitter Blue token when people on Twitter access articles from your
properties," the micro-blogging platform said in an email sent to
publishers.
"This will prevent the ad-free experience on your site
from loading. There is no change required from your end, but feel free to
remove any Twitter Blue code from your site," said the company.
The features let Blue users view ad-free articles on
participating websites.
"This is just the beginning for Ad-free Articles with
much more ad-free content to come as we continue to build more partnerships,
with more publishers, in more markets," the company had said in November
last year.
"Our goal is to help each publishing partner make 50
per cent more per person than they would have made from serving ads to that
person," it added.