Elon Musk Says Twitter Impersonators Will Be Banned, But There's One Exception
Elon Musk seems to have had enough of verified accounts parodying him and sharing mean or oddly funny tweets while pretending to be the billionaire. In a tweet, Musk announced that "any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying 'parody' will be permanently suspended." Musk argues that the move has something to do with the widespread rollout of account verification.
In fact, Twitter appears to have banned a few accounts for impersonating Musk over the past few days. Ian Woolford, a professor at Australia's La Trobe University who tweets at @iawoolford, had his account suspended over the weekend. Woolford posted a few sarcastic tweets after changing the account's name to Elon Musk and even shared a funny line from an extremely famous song in India's Bhojpuri language. After his account was suspended, Woolford was interviewed by news outlet Lallantop about the whole ordeal.
Kathy Griffin/Twitter
Woolford was not the only one ribbing Musk and then facing the suspension axe, however. Comedienne Kathy Griffin's account was also suspended after she tweeted jokes over the past couple of days while impersonating Musk. NFL star Chris Kluwe's account has also been suspended following Tesla jokes. Actors Valerie Bertinelli and Brendan Fehr also changed their Twitter profile names and cracked some jokes impersonating Musk, but have since done a course correction and avoided suspension.
Say you're a parody or face suspension
Musk adds that so far, accounts impersonating any other person (read: him) were issued a warning, but moving forward, no warning will be given and the account will be suspended with immediate effect. In fact, a clause about not impersonating another person will be made mandatory for the $8 per month Twitter Blue subscription, which offers a verified badge and was originally rumored to roll out on November 7, though now it appears that date has been pushed forward due to election concerns.
Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.
This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2022
But that's not all. The new Twitter CEO says "any name change at all" will result in temporary removal of the verified badge. The only exception is public disclosure. An account impersonating any other individual will have to clearly mention that it's a parody. The latest move is nothing short of a culture shock. The Twitter handle, which begins with an @ sign, is permanent and can't be changed. But Twitter users often change their name in accordance with significant events, from supporting a sports team or a social cause to clever puns based on Halloween or an entertainment franchise.
Even Twitter employees have used the name-changing ability to send home a message, with the recent layoffs being one of them. Musk's latest policy move is rather ironic. Soon after he signed the acquisition papers and jokingly entered Twitter's office carrying a sink in his hands, he tweeted that "Comedy is now legal on Twitter."