Musk Changes Twitter's Rules For Parody Accounts
Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who spent a whopping $44 billion on purchasing the platform just a couple of weeks ago, continues trying to implement new changes every single day. Whether good or bad, these changes are happening, and Musk talks about some of them on his own Twitter page. The latest "upgrade" served up by Musk and what's left of his Twitter team affects parody accounts.
Almost from the moment Musk obtained the platform and fired the board of directors, he made it quite clear that things will be changing. He fired thousands of employees with no warning, put a definitive end to all remote work in the company, and supposedly made those who still work at Twitter work 12-hour shifts in order to carry out the new agenda. Musk pays a great deal of attention to Twitter Blue and the verification system on the platform. Previously, verification was given to notable accounts, but Musk introduced paid Blue verification that comes as part of the monthly subscription.
Musk's plan was to get rid of the "corrupt" legacy verified accounts and enforce Twitter Blue as the only way for users to get verified, or so it seemed. However, as Reuters reports, some of the previously verified accounts have now gotten their badge back and the $8/month checkmark seems to have disappeared for some accounts. It's all up in the air, but amongst this confusion, Musk is still introducing yet another change.
An unsurprising change
Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that parody accounts will be facing a significant change. "Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include 'parody' in their name, not just in bio," said the billionaire. "To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok," he added in another tweet. If you're wondering what brought this on, you must have been avoiding Twitter for the last few days, because the situation was equal parts insane, funny, and off-putting, depending on what kind of content you'd stumble upon.
Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include “parody†in their name, not just in bio
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2022
With the Twitter Blue verification checkmark looking indistinguishable from the real deal, many users were able to simply shell out $8 and make themselves look like the accounts of people verified through the actual verification program. As an example, there have been plenty of instances of users who'd change their Twitter name to "Elon Musk," pay for the verification, update their profile picture, and impersonate Musk as they said all manner of ridiculous things. At the first glance, you wouldn't be able to tell that they were really impersonating someone; it's only the Twitter handle that really gives it away.
The platform quickly became flooded with impersonations of all kinds of celebrities and companies ranging from Musk himself to President Biden. It's not a surprise that Twitter is now pulling the plug on these "parody accounts," but at the same time, it's hard not to find some small dose of hilarity in the chaos that has completely overtaken Twitter in the last week or two.