iNEWS
Since its founding in 2006, Twitter has been more than your standard social network. It’s a place for powerbrokers and the world’s elite to come together and talk. That disproportionate focus on politicians, journalists and celebrities is what has made Twitter – a relative minnow at 250 million users – have an outsized impact on society.
With that famous userbase came challenges. In June 2009, in response to a lawsuit against the company by Major League Baseball player Tony La Russa, who was subject to an impersonator on Twitter, the social media platform introduced a verification system. Official, verified identities would be denoted by a blue tick against their name.
That worked well, until Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022 and changed things.
Musk had said that he’d remove blue ticks – the universal sign of a verified account on Twitter – from all those who haven’t paid for his Twitter Blue subscription service on 20 April. The goal appeared to be to squeeze cash out of Twitter’s userbase.
That date has come and gone, and while the majority of accounts have lost their proof of being associated with the individual they claim to be, some haven’t.
Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan is verified, but his longstanding nemesis Ric Flair isn’t. Former basketballer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is, but Shaquille O’Neal isn’t. Stephen King, the author who has previously criticised Elon Musk’s control of Twitter, remains verified, even though he has said he hasn’t forked out for Twitter Blue.
Musk has subsequently said he is personally paying for Twitter Blue subscriptions for King, Star Trek star William Shatner and basketball icon LeBron James. Meanwhile, the City of New York’s Twitter account has seen other, impersonating accounts replying to its tweets trying to trick people into following the wrong link…
