Twitter’s pay-to-verify account system is attracting unwanted scrutiny from government officials after a news reporter mimicked the account of a US senator in his test.
Ed Markey, the senator whose account was impersonated in the test, has sent a letter to Elon Musk asking questions about how this happened. He further demanded how Twitter verifies an account and its measures for preventing misinformation on the platform.
Impersonating an Official Account
The mess that Elon Musk is creating around Twitter is irritating everyone. The recent one on this list is a US senator Ed Markey, who was impersonated in a test done by a reporter from The Washington Post.
In a test to check how easy it’s to get a verified badge, the reporter paid the sum of $8 and got his blue checkmark in minutes, which helped him impersonate comedian Erskine and Ed Markey – with their permission.
This intrigued Ed Markey, who had sent a letter to Elon Musk asking how the platform is prepared to prevent imposters in the new paid verification system, with his own case as an example! He was furious that Twitter not only allowed his account to be impersonated but also told users in a pop-up that the verification was due to a role in government.
All this while the original Ed Markey’s account has a verified badge. Accusing Musk of his “haphazard” series of changes at Twitter, Markey further demanded to know the details of Twitter’s verification process, including a comparison with the previous method.
While a reply is due by November 25th, we’re unsure if this would attract legal action if Musk doesn’t respond. Twitter is already facing a lawsuit from its former employees over a very short notice period given before suspending them all, including the whole communications team.
