Mario, LeBron, Trump, Jesus Christ: Twitter is playing a whack-a-mole with verified users

Twitter Verify is used to indicate that “Twitter has verified your identity”. As of this morningThe only thing that means is that you’re coughing up eight bucks to join the club because Elon Musk decided that anyone could buy a “Verified” checkmark without any verification whatsoever.

In the hours that followed, some fun ensued.

Jesus Christ, a parody account found on Twitter, was also able to verify its authenticity:

Twitter is already taking action on some of these accounts: for example, fake Nintendo, fake Trump, fake Valve, and fake LeBron accounts have been suspended. (Mario has been up for about two hours, and Valve even longer.) The others are still around. The company says it “vigorously pursues impersonation and deception”. But it looks like it’s going to be a hit-and-mole game.

While Musk has claimed that this new system will deter spammers, it is now crystal clear how he can Enable Fake news – despite users He can still check to see Why Account Verified If they click or tap the badge instead of retweeting blindly.

Twitter also briefly tried using a two-tiered check mark system this morning, But Musk “killed her” Only a few hours later.