Fakers play as Musk makes people pay for a Twitter blue tick

• Elon Musk recently made the blue tick a paid service, allowing all users to get a blue tick with Twitter Blue.
• This has resulted in accounts impersonating celebrities and popular brands popping up.
• Some of the accounts that have been spotted include accounts impersonating Mark Zuckerberg, George Bush, Twitter, and Rockstar Games.

Elon Musk recently completed the acquisition of Twitter, and soon after that, he started making changes to the popular social media platform. The biggest change so far has been to the platform’s blue tick system.

The Tesla co-founder has made the blue tick a part of Twitter Blue, the company’s premium subscription, which is now available for $8 globally and ₹719 (approx. $8.9) in India.

What is a blue tick?

Blue tick is Twitter’s verification process and indicates that accounts with a blue tick are real people. Earlier, blue ticks were reserved for notable accounts in the government, entertainment, news, or other categories such as sports, politics, and basically of public interest.

It made it easier for other users to identify original accounts, separating them from impersonators.

Now that Musk has made the blue tick a paid service, people have already started misusing it to impersonate other people and brands, making it easy to fool other users, leaving the only option to check their handles and judge based on it.

Blue tick monetization opens the doors to fakesters and scammers

Soon after Twitter rolled out the paid Twitter Blue subscription with the blue tick, there have been several instances where accounts with the blue tick have been impersonating others and posting misleading and incorrect information.


In one such instance, a user with the id @joeahvr was caught impersonating Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg. The user was using the name Mark, along with Zuckerberg’s images. The account has now been suspended for “violating Twitter rules.”


In another instance, a user with the id @georgewbushs was impersonating former American president George Bush. The account posted a scandalous tweet saying, “I miss killing Iraqis.” This was retweeted by someone impersonating former UK prime minister Tony Blair, with the comment “same tbh.”

Twitter has suspended both accounts, but instances like this are enough to cause outrage among the people who may consider the account genuine after seeing the blue tick.

LeBron James

A user also impersonated LeBron James, the popular American basketball player. The account with the id @KINGJamez claimed that he is requesting a trade and leaving Lakers Nation.

In addition to impersonating people, a few users have also been caught impersonating brands.

Twitter

Gillian de Nooijer, a Twitter user, found an account impersonating Twitter, claiming to offer free Twitter Blue to Crypto/NFT holders and sharing a link, asking them to “authenticate” their wallets.

Rockstar Games

A Twitter user also found an account impersonating Rockstar Games, the creator of the Grand Theft Auto series. While the account did not try to scam anyone, it claimed that GTA VI would be launched on November 18.

These are just a few examples of people impersonating others on Twitter after getting a blue tick. Twitter has yet to reveal what steps it plans on taking to prevent such misuse, apart from banning such users after the act.

The present system has made it easier for scammers to target unsuspecting users by impersonating brands and celebrities. As seen above, a user impersonated Twitter to try to get access to the crypto and NFT wallets of users by offering them free access to Twitter Blue.

SEE ALSO:

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