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Twitter pauses paid verification after users impersonate brands and public figures

Twitter users began impersonating accounts of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, former American president George Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others.

Written by : TNM Staff

Twitter decided to pause the controversial $8 verification program on Friday, November 11, days after it was announced. The paid verification subscription was called ‘Twitter Blue’ and went live on Friday. Those who subscribed to this program and paid $8 per month, could get a ‘blue tick’, that is usually given to ‘verified’ accounts of famous public figures. This subscription service has been paused after several parody accounts with paid ‘blue tick’ began impersonating popular Twitter accounts including those of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, former American president George Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others.

The parody accounts tweeted controversial and false statements which resulted in widespread confusion on the social media platform. For instance, Eli Lilly’s parody account tweeted, “We are excited to announce that insulin is now free.” The now removed tweet remained on Twitter for hours. The original Eli Lilly account later apologised for the fake account’s tweet saying, “We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account” and tagged the original account as well. According to CNBC, after the fake message was posted and clarification was issued by the original account, Eli Lilly’s stock prices dropped sharply. The stock prices of another pharmaceutical company named AbbVie also dropped, whose account was also impersonated. 

Elon Musk, who bought the social media platform for $44 billion on October 27, announced a slew of measures to make the platform more profitable, including the ‘pay for verification’ programme. The former CEO of the company Parag Agarwal was fired by Musk shortly after the latter took over. Other top officials who were fired include Vijaya Gadde, the legal executive, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and General Counsel Sean Edgett.

Apart from that, Twitter laid off a significant number of its employees a week after Musk acquired the company. According to a New York Times report, Twitter employees were notified in an email that layoffs were about to begin and “workers were instructed to go home and not return to the offices as the cuts proceeded.”