Twitter Stops Giving Out Blue Check Marks After Impersonators Take to the Platform
Twitter Inc. appears to have stopped offering its paid subscription service after people were using it to impersonate companies, brands and celebrities.
The company in recent days had rolled out an update to the service, Twitter Blue, which allowed any user to pay $7.99 a month for a verified account and other privileges. But the Twitter Blue subscription wasn’t available for purchase on the iOS app on Friday. On its website, Twitter said accounts created on or after Nov. 9 were “unable to subscribe to Twitter Blue at this time.”
Twitter didn’t return requests for comment Friday.
The move to pause its revamped Twitter Blue offering comes after some impersonators exploited their blue check marks, sowing confusion on the platform. Verified users have falsely posed as
LeBron James
demanding a trade,
George W. Bush
attacking Iraqis and
Eli Lilly
LLY -4.45%
& Co. cutting insulin prices to zero.
Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter has been marred by chaos.
Photo:
Baron Capital/Associated Press
The apparent change is one of many shifts that have caused chaos on Twitter since
Elon Musk
bought the social-media company two weeks ago. He has upended the company with layoffs, leadership changes and policy shifts. Several advertisers have paused spending, and Mr. Musk said Thursday that bankruptcy was a possibility for Twitter.
Mr. Musk sent his first email to the whole company overnight Wednesday, in which he said he was ending remote work for most employees.
Mr. Musk sent another email to employees on Friday, in which he said he was at Twitter headquarters until late Thursday night and thanked employees who also worked late, according to copies of the message viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Musk also wrote that working remotely is fine if someone couldn’t reasonably make it to an office and was performing at an exceptional level. Still, Mr. Musk added that he is a big believer in the effectiveness of working in the same location.
He began allowing users to pay for blue check marks as part of his campaign to get rid of impersonating users and spam account operators and generate revenue from subscriptions.
His changes to Twitter Blue have played out in real time this week as hundreds of millions of users tried to keep up. The company said over the weekend that it was rolling the service out to users but many people said they couldn’t sign up. Then Twitter said it would launch the service once Election Day passed on Tuesday. There appeared to be more accounts with the blue check marks on the platform after that.
Twitter officials said the new Twitter Blue didn’t verify people’s identities.
Before Mr. Musk bought Twitter last month, the company used to verify accounts for free that it deemed notable and trustworthy. The company gave blue check marks to accounts run by politicians, journalists, entertainers and others. Those accounts still have blue check marks but now they are mixed in with users who have paid to be verified.
This week, Twitter has tried to offer clarity by marking some verified accounts with an additional label: an “official” tag and a gray check mark. However, the company has flip-flopped on that policy in recent days by rolling out the designation, taking it away and then restoring it again.
Mr. Musk has said he wants Twitter to be the world’s most accurate source of information and that he wants every user to be verified unless they are a bot account. He has long said that one of his priorities was to get bot operators off Twitter.
LeBron James was impersonated by a verified account on Twitter.
Photo:
Jevone Moore/Zuma Press
A number of newly verified users have tricked people on the platform this week. One of them was the account “EliLillyandCo,” which tweeted Thursday that insulin was now free. The account was private Friday morning so only its followers could see its tweets.
Thousands of users liked the tweet before the real Eli Lilly & Co. clarified that insulin wasn’t free.
“We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad,” the company tweeted.
Insulin is a lifesaving medication used to control blood-sugar levels in people with diabetes. Lawmakers who believe it is too expensive have tried to lower its cost. A vial of one of Lilly’s more common insulins, Humalog, is $274.70 before insurance payment, according to the company’s website.
Lilly said Thursday that it was in conversation with Twitter to address the accounts posing as the company.
The company added in a statement Friday, “We are deeply committed to ensuring patients and customers receive accurate information about our medicines.”
From Twitter to Meta: Tech Layoffs by the Numbers
Impersonators have also posed in recent days as brands including the doll company American Girl, the oil company
BP
PLC and Chiquita, which produces bananas.
Lockheed Martin Corp.
, the defense company, and game maker
Roblox Corp.
have also been impersonated.
An account with the handle “nlntendoofus,” pretending to be the videogame company
Nintendo Co.
NTDOY 0.58%
Ltd., posted a picture of the character Mario raising his middle finger. The account was later suspended.
Nintendo didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Courtney Spritzer,
the co-founder and chief executive of Socialfly, a social-media marketing company, said it is dangerous for companies to have accounts impersonating them. She said the accounts could collect money from a brand’s followers or share inaccurate information about a brand.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Elon Musk’s Twitter verification strategy? Join the conversation below.
“Essentially they’re having their identity stolen,” she said.
She noted that brand impersonators are a problem across social-media platforms, not just Twitter. Still, she said they could be especially detrimental on Twitter. If the social-media company doesn’t verify a user’s identity before assigning a blue check mark, the impersonator is granted authenticity it doesn’t actually have.
She said companies should report impersonating accounts to social-media platforms so they can be taken down.
“For many brands, they have built brand trust and brand loyalty with their customers,” Ms. Spritzer said, “so to have someone infiltrate that could really hurt the brand.”
—Peter Loftus contributed to this article.
Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Twitter Inc. appears to have stopped offering its paid subscription service after people were using it to impersonate companies, brands and celebrities.
The company in recent days had rolled out an update to the service, Twitter Blue, which allowed any user to pay $7.99 a month for a verified account and other privileges. But the Twitter Blue subscription wasn’t available for purchase on the iOS app on Friday. On its website, Twitter said accounts created on or after Nov. 9 were “unable to subscribe to Twitter Blue at this time.”
Twitter didn’t return requests for comment Friday.
The move to pause its revamped Twitter Blue offering comes after some impersonators exploited their blue check marks, sowing confusion on the platform. Verified users have falsely posed as
LeBron James
demanding a trade,
George W. Bush
attacking Iraqis and
Eli Lilly
LLY -4.45%
& Co. cutting insulin prices to zero.
Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter has been marred by chaos.
Photo:
Baron Capital/Associated Press
The apparent change is one of many shifts that have caused chaos on Twitter since
Elon Musk
bought the social-media company two weeks ago. He has upended the company with layoffs, leadership changes and policy shifts. Several advertisers have paused spending, and Mr. Musk said Thursday that bankruptcy was a possibility for Twitter.
Mr. Musk sent his first email to the whole company overnight Wednesday, in which he said he was ending remote work for most employees.
Mr. Musk sent another email to employees on Friday, in which he said he was at Twitter headquarters until late Thursday night and thanked employees who also worked late, according to copies of the message viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Musk also wrote that working remotely is fine if someone couldn’t reasonably make it to an office and was performing at an exceptional level. Still, Mr. Musk added that he is a big believer in the effectiveness of working in the same location.
He began allowing users to pay for blue check marks as part of his campaign to get rid of impersonating users and spam account operators and generate revenue from subscriptions.
His changes to Twitter Blue have played out in real time this week as hundreds of millions of users tried to keep up. The company said over the weekend that it was rolling the service out to users but many people said they couldn’t sign up. Then Twitter said it would launch the service once Election Day passed on Tuesday. There appeared to be more accounts with the blue check marks on the platform after that.
Twitter officials said the new Twitter Blue didn’t verify people’s identities.
Before Mr. Musk bought Twitter last month, the company used to verify accounts for free that it deemed notable and trustworthy. The company gave blue check marks to accounts run by politicians, journalists, entertainers and others. Those accounts still have blue check marks but now they are mixed in with users who have paid to be verified.
This week, Twitter has tried to offer clarity by marking some verified accounts with an additional label: an “official” tag and a gray check mark. However, the company has flip-flopped on that policy in recent days by rolling out the designation, taking it away and then restoring it again.
Mr. Musk has said he wants Twitter to be the world’s most accurate source of information and that he wants every user to be verified unless they are a bot account. He has long said that one of his priorities was to get bot operators off Twitter.
LeBron James was impersonated by a verified account on Twitter.
Photo:
Jevone Moore/Zuma Press
A number of newly verified users have tricked people on the platform this week. One of them was the account “EliLillyandCo,” which tweeted Thursday that insulin was now free. The account was private Friday morning so only its followers could see its tweets.
Thousands of users liked the tweet before the real Eli Lilly & Co. clarified that insulin wasn’t free.
“We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account. Our official Twitter account is @LillyPad,” the company tweeted.
Insulin is a lifesaving medication used to control blood-sugar levels in people with diabetes. Lawmakers who believe it is too expensive have tried to lower its cost. A vial of one of Lilly’s more common insulins, Humalog, is $274.70 before insurance payment, according to the company’s website.
Lilly said Thursday that it was in conversation with Twitter to address the accounts posing as the company.
The company added in a statement Friday, “We are deeply committed to ensuring patients and customers receive accurate information about our medicines.”
From Twitter to Meta: Tech Layoffs by the Numbers
Impersonators have also posed in recent days as brands including the doll company American Girl, the oil company
BP
PLC and Chiquita, which produces bananas.
Lockheed Martin Corp.
, the defense company, and game maker
Roblox Corp.
have also been impersonated.
An account with the handle “nlntendoofus,” pretending to be the videogame company
Nintendo Co.
NTDOY 0.58%
Ltd., posted a picture of the character Mario raising his middle finger. The account was later suspended.
Nintendo didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Courtney Spritzer,
the co-founder and chief executive of Socialfly, a social-media marketing company, said it is dangerous for companies to have accounts impersonating them. She said the accounts could collect money from a brand’s followers or share inaccurate information about a brand.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Elon Musk’s Twitter verification strategy? Join the conversation below.
“Essentially they’re having their identity stolen,” she said.
She noted that brand impersonators are a problem across social-media platforms, not just Twitter. Still, she said they could be especially detrimental on Twitter. If the social-media company doesn’t verify a user’s identity before assigning a blue check mark, the impersonator is granted authenticity it doesn’t actually have.
She said companies should report impersonating accounts to social-media platforms so they can be taken down.
“For many brands, they have built brand trust and brand loyalty with their customers,” Ms. Spritzer said, “so to have someone infiltrate that could really hurt the brand.”
—Peter Loftus contributed to this article.
Write to Alyssa Lukpat at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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