from the all’s-well-in-twitterville dept
As you’ll recall, Elon Musk’s first “huge thought” for “saving Twitter” was to eliminate the present verification program, oddly and uncomfortably merge it with Twitter’s subscription program, Twitter Blue, and… um… revenue? Tons and plenty of individuals (together with Twitter’s present belief and security crew) defined why this was a silly thought, however Musk insisted that the crew of builders he was doubtless going to fireplace anyway needed to get it prepared in per week or he’d hearth them.
Hilariously, Musk pretended that his new system was one way or the other much less elitist than the outdated system, when the truth is that the brand new system was simply extra fucked up, and the corporate almost immediately brought back the “elitism” of particular verified accounts as advertisers flipped out. This was, in typical Musk style, as a result of he by no means bothered to know the reasons why each social media finally comes up with a real verification system (which Twitter pioneered, after which everybody else copied).
So, simply as everybody predicted, the preliminary verification system was a hilariously funny disaster, with tons of vital individuals and types impersonated (generally convincingly, generally hilariously). Musk shut this system down the subsequent day and promised it wouldn’t come again till the issues had been solved… in about two weeks. It took somewhat longer than that, however this system did come again. And but… it doesn’t appear to be they really mounted the issues.
Final week, the Washington Put up revealed that they’d (for the second time) successfully impersonated Senator Ed Markey (to the purpose {that a} semi-viral tweet by Senator Fetterman’s spouse linked to the faux “verified” Ed Markey) slightly than the true one.
After Blue 2.0 (my time period for it) launched on Dec. 12, I made one other fake Markey and utilized for verification. A few of Twitter’s new necessities slowed down the method — and may dissuade some impatient impersonators — however the firm by no means requested to see a type of identification. Final week, up popped a blue test mark on my @SenatorEdMarkey account. Oops! I did it once more.
Additionally, new analysis has discovered that the newly minted “Blue verified accounts” have change into a leading source of disinformation on Twitter within the final month, particularly medical disinformation.
And, then, this week, it got here out that Taliban members had successfully bought their way to respectability with a verified blue check.
Beforehand, the blue tick indicated “lively, notable, and genuine accounts of public curiosity” verified by Twitter, and couldn’t be bought.
However now, customers can purchase them by means of the brand new Twitter Blue service.
No less than two Taliban officers and 4 distinguished supporters in Afghanistan are presently utilizing the checkmarks.
Hedayatullah Hedayat, the top of the Taliban’s division for “entry to info”, now has the tick.
Cool. Cool. No issues there. No issues in any respect.
In fact, as that story went viral, it seems that Musk’s minions scrambled to remove the check marks. I’m guessing he didn’t refund their $8.
Filed Underneath: ed markey, elon musk, taliban, twitter blue, verification
Firms: twitter
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