Twitter Halts Paid Checkmarks After Influx Of Impersonators Parodying Brands
Elon Musk’s idea of making users pay for verification isn’t going as planned, with the platform pausing its Twitter Blue subscription offering, and some paid users reporting their blue checkmarks have disappeared.
Notable reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong confirmed this, tweeting that the social media site “seems to have unlaunched the new $7.99 Twitter Blue subscription,” as the in-app purchase option for ‘Twitter Blue Verified’ was taken off the application.
Twitter seems to have unlaunched the new $7.99 Twitter Blue subscription
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) November 11, 2022
Checked with Twitter’s API and the in-app purchase for Twitter Blue Verified is no longer listed for production
According to CNBC, an employee at Twitter revealed that the paid verifications have been halted due to the influx of impersonators. One striking example was when a fake account of pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly caused chaos after it tweeted that “insulin is free now.”
Did Twitter Blue tweet just cost Eli Lilly $LLY billions?
— Rafael Shimunov is on Mastodon (@rafaelshimunov) November 11, 2022
Yes. pic.twitter.com/w4RtJwgCVK
The TeslaReal is my favorite so far. pic.twitter.com/X1XXsdZKZT
— Pxl ðŸ³ï¸ðŸŒˆðŸ’‰ðŸ˜·ðŸŒŠ (Parody) (@PxlJedi) November 11, 2022
Unsurprisingly, Musk’s own Tesla Motors suffered the same fate. An account resembling the automaker, armed with a paid blue checkmark, has penned a series of disparaging tweets about the firm.
To combat impersonation, we’ve added an “Official” label to some accounts.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 11, 2022
To make matters more confusing, after deciding to roll back its gray “official” checkmarks—which were initially implemented to help users distinguish actual celebrities and organizations from paid verifications—it looks like they’ve reappeared.
This is despite Musk saying that he felt the differing symbols were an “aesthetic nightmare” and created “a two-class system” within the application.
With the current controversy surrounding the site, and the inability to tell real actors from false ones, many advertisers have since paused spending on the platform, leading to industry insiders speculating about the possibility of the site shutting down altogether.
3. Roblox?? pic.twitter.com/0G107LSbfI
— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) November 11, 2022
Could this be the beginning of an end for Twitter?
4. Classic British Petroleum pic.twitter.com/3aJZe1mvAR
— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) November 11, 2022
Uhhh @NintendoEurope?? pic.twitter.com/V4WGZm9GaL
— Read Jackson Rising by @CooperationJXN (@JoshuaPHilll) November 11, 2022
[via 9t05Mac and CNBC, cover image via Primakov / Shutterstock.com]
