Twitter, the launch of paid blue checks is a disaster: fake accounts are wreaking havoc

Twitter has yet to figure out what to do with the blue check marks. The debut of the new version of Twitter Blue was a semi-disaster. Elon Musk himself had to capitulate, admitting “you’ll see a lot of dumb attempts on Twitter in the coming months,” explaining that the social network will continually test until it finds a square and eventually chooses a viable path.

Yesterday Twitter in the United States opened the doors to the new version of TwitterBluethe subscription for just under $8/month that gives access to some exclusive features, including the coveted new paid blue check.

A large number of American users have purchased Twitter Blue, precisely with the aim of sticking the exclusive badge next to their nickname. But the party didn’t last long.

SuperMario – complete with blue check – raises the middle finger to his fans. Rudy Giuliani, also fresh from the ‘new’ check, stammers incomprehensible sentences. And then LeBron James, Valve and of course Donald Trump. They are clearly all fake profiles, who have taken advantage of the new paid verification system to spread chaos. The Verge has collected the most emblematic and irreverent cases.

The official Twitter account posted a short statement explaining that the social network is acting in an “extremely aggressive” manner against all cases of impersonation of celebrities and companies. So much so that the Nintendo, Trump, and Valve fake accounts have all been suspended for life.

Yesterday, the social network announced a new two-track account verification system: on the one hand, the blue checks, available to all paying users, on the other hand, a new gray check that would have fulfilled the function of the previous system and would therefore be only appeared on the accounts of politicians, institutions, journalists and other persons and companies deemed to be of public interest. It was a good system, which would have avoided ambiguity by easily identifying scams and trolling attempts. Too bad the company backtracked by deciding to keep a single check for everyone. I ask myself why.