See How Elon Musk’s Twitter Blue Subscription Plan Is Already Backfiring
Elon Musk made the Twitter Blue subscription an $8 avenue for anyone to get verified, and now tons of fake accounts have been popping up posing as the real thing, including a false Nintendo account that tweeted a picture of Mario giving the middle finger.
Twitter Blue’s new verification model appears to be backfiring. Less than a day after its launch, the platform has become plagued by accounts pretending to be famous figures in politics, entertainment, sports, and gaming. Introduced in 2009, the blue check mark was previously reserved for noteworthy accounts that were vetted as authentic by the social media giant. It also severed a way to curb impersonation on the micro-blogging site.
But following Elon Musk’s takeover, the billionaire announced that anyone could purchase the badge for a monthly fee of $8.00 as part of the Twitter Blue service. He said the new system would create more equality on the platform by granting regular folks the same clout as their previously verified counterparts. He also believed that charging for the badge was the only way to defeat the bots and trolls.
But since making verification accessible to anyone willing to pay the Twitter Blue subscription fee, it’s had the opposite effect. Accounts that were obviously fake before now look exactly like the people and organizations they’re pretending to be. Attempting to quell the chaos, several verified accounts have been suspended after other users posted screenshots displaying their misleading content.
The fake accounts had posed as former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Nintendo of America, the basketball player LeBron James, Valve, and more, The Verge reports. Before being suspended, the impostor Nintendo profile shared an image of popular video game character Mario giving the viewer the middle finger. The LeBron James account falsely claimed the athlete had requested a trade, while the faux Trump account said, “This is why Elon Musk’s [Twitter Blue] plan doesn’t work.”
While having a slew of impersonators on social media doesn’t sound like the end of the world, it could have serious long-term implications for the platform and the spread of misinformation. Speaking to CNN Business about Twitter Blue, cyber security expert Rachel Tobac said the trend could quickly spread to bad actors impersonating first responders or other government accounts. “This verification rollout is causing huge trust issues across the platform already,” she said.
In Twitter’s defense, clicking on the blue checkmark does give users more information about why the account in question is verified. The info box will either say it was paid for or has been identified as notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category. But whether anyone will actually bother to check the authenticity of an account’s verification status before replying or sharing the content is doubtful.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has already admitted that Twitter, and its paid Blue service, will face some hiccups in the coming weeks as he applies a rapidly iterative engineering methodology to the platform which has worked in his other ventures like SpaceX. “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” the billionaire said in a tweet.
Although he said the social media company will keep what works and change what doesn’t, Twitter Blue is already causing some serious damage. Elon Musk’s short-sighted ideas could also result in the platform’s collapse as more people search for alternatives to the micro-blogging site.
