Defying a decision to delay account verifications for the paid version of the CNN Live social network: a case for the Blue Check system
A source with knowledge of the decision confirmed to CNN that account verifications for the paid version of the service wouldn’t be available until after the elections.
The decision to delay was made due to the wide public backlash over the entire decision to charge users for verification. In a display of defiance, some celebrities on the platform posed as Musk over the weekend and revealed a potential flaw in the “Blue Check” system.
The original purpose of the blue checkmark was noted before the stunt. Journalists were the majority of recipients, with it being free for people who had their identity confirmed by Twitter employees. “It simply meant your identity was verified. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you,” Bertinelli noted.
CNN conducted tests of the service on Saturday afternoon and they indicated that it wasn’t complete yet. A fresh Twitter account created by CNN that opted for the paid feature did not show the checkmark on its public profile. Twitter also still appeared to be charging $4.99, an outdated price.
Twitter is Suspending for Impersonating a Cometor: Valerie Silverman’s Twitter Account Changes After the “Demonstration of Democracy”
After using Musk’s screen name for a few days, the actor changed her name back to “Valerie” as she supported Democratic candidates on Saturday. “Okey-dokey.” I’ve had fun and I think I made my point,” she tweeted afterwards.
“I am a freedom of speech absolutist and I eat doody for breakfast every day,” Silverman tweeted Saturday. She also supports Democratic candidates on her account.
On Sunday, Silverman’s account was labeled “temporarily restricted”, with a warning that “there has been some odd activity from this account” shown to guests before they click on the profile. The comedian then changed her account back to its usual form, complete with her own name and image.
The blue checkmark on her account meant that her identity had been verified, she said on Friday. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you. That does not apply anymore. Good luck out there! She then answered a follower who asked how the checkmark no longer applies, writing, “[y]ou can buy a blue check mark for $7.99 a month without verifying who you are.”
After changing her profile name to Musk, Bertinelli tweeted and retweeted support for several Democratic candidates and hashtags, including “VoteBlueForDemocracy” and “#VoteBlueIn2022.”
“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended,” Musk wrote. Before the suspension, there were warnings, but they will not be given now that it is spreading verification.
The trolling activity comes in the wake of Musk purchasing the company and pledging to restore the accounts of users who were previously banned from the platform, most notably former President Donald Trump. Musk has also said he will limit the company’s content restrictions and require the paid subscription for account verification.
In recent months, Musk has shared conspiracy theories about the attack on Paul Pelosi, called Democrats the party of “division & hate,” compared Twitter’s former CEO to Joseph Stalin and warned that “the woke mind virus will destroy civilization.”
It was not clear how long the account suspension would remain in effect. Musk mocked Griffin Sunday, quipping that “she was suspended for impersonating a comedian.” Musk also tweeted that Griffin could get her account back by paying $8 a month for Twitter Blue, although it wasn’t clear whether Musk was serious.
“I guess not ALL the content moderators were let go? Lol,” Griffin joked afterward on Mastodon, an alternative social media platform where she set up an account last week.
Twitter: When will it be available? Implications for Counter Social, a social media company whose employees are complaining about the layoffs
It said the service would first be available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. There was no indication when it would be available, as it was not available Sunday. A Twitter employ, Esther Crawford, told The Associated Press it is coming “soon but it hasn’t launched yet.”
Some users are moving to Counter Social, another popular alternative to the platform, after the layoffs that affected about half of the company’s workforce. They fear a breakdown of moderation and verification could create a disinformation free-for-all on what has been the internet’s main conduit for reliable communications from public agencies and other institutions.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, sought to assuage such concerns in a tweet Friday. He said the company’s front-line content moderation staff was the group least affected by the job cuts.
There was no choice to cut jobs, as the company was losing over $4 million a day. He did not provide details on the daily losses at Twitter and said employees who lost their jobs were offered three months’ pay as severance.
Griffin appeared to be the first celebrity to lose her tweeting privileges after a wave of prominent users impersonated Musk over the weekend, with the goal of underscoring potential flaws in the social media company’s plans for a revised verification system.
Musk has made an $8 Twitter subscription plan his signature bid to bolster the company’s revenue. The new plan was hastily rolled out over the weekend before the company ultimately decided to delay the service until after the midterms.
Some celebrities took to the platform over the weekend and posed as Musk, with a blue check mark on their profiles, in defiance of the backlash that the partially rolled out plan faced.
The Fate of Facebook, Twitter: Implicating Donald Trump and Kathy Griffin with a New High-Energy Social Media Account
CNN fired comedian Kathy Griffin in December of last year after pictures of her holding up a bloody head resemblance to Donald Trump went public. Griffin had co-hosted the New Year’s Eve program alongside Anderson Cooper for a decade.
Still, it’s bad for Twitter that these tweets stayed up for so long, especially the ones from fake brands. As of right now, the company relies on advertising as its main source of revenue. Advertisers have shown that they do not like a platform that lets people impersonate them. There have been several very brand-unsafe viral tweets — perhaps one of the most infamous was someone impersonating pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, announcing that insulin was free.
A tweet from @Roblox_US announces the addition of sex to the game popular with young adults. It started up at 9AM on Thursday morning. An account pretending to be Coke (which is currently still active and verified) had a now-deleted post saying “If this gets 1000 retweets we will put cocaine back in Coca-Cola.” It got those retweets.
Despite a ten-hour old spoof of Ohio Governor Mike Dewine, the account was allowed to remain active despite the fact that it had over 2,000 followers.
Musk has since said that Twitter will be “adding a “Parody” subscript to clarify,” but it’s unclear whether accounts will have to mark themselves as parodies, or if Twitter itself will make that determination.
The official account of the company apologized for being fooled by the faker. Eli Lilly and another company that had an imposter of their own have seen dramatic drops in stock prices on Friday, though it is impossible to say if the tweeters were responsible for that.
Musk replied to a person talking about Pokemon and Nintendo posts with two laughing emojis, as shown in this amazing collection of fakes that have since been banned. I doubt he’s laughing much today, though; Omnicom, one of the world’s biggest ad firms with clients like Apple, PepsiCo, and McDonalds, issued a memo advising its clients to hold off on advertising with Twitter for a bit.