Twitter has long been a place people use to stay up-to-date on tornado warnings, check for train delays, get breaking news or the latest crime advisories from their department of law. local police.
But when the Elon Musk-owned platform began removing blue checkmarks this week from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee to have it, public agencies and other organizations around the world scrambled to find ways to prove it. they are trustworthy and prevent spoofing.
Celebrity wearers who lost their blue tick on Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former US President Donald Trump. But the marks have also been removed from the accounts of major transit systems from San Francisco to Paris, the accounts of national parks like Yosemite, official weather trackers and some elected officials.
Twitter had approximately 400,000 verified accounts under the original blue tick system. In the past, such a mark meant that Twitter had verified that users were who they said they were.
Although Twitter now offers a gold mark for “verified organizations” and gray marks for government organizations and their agencies, it’s not always clear why some accounts had them on Friday and others didn’t.
Fake accounts claiming to be Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the city’s Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation began sharing messages early Friday falsely claiming that Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, a major transit thoroughfare, will be closed effective of the next month.
A critical eye could spot obvious signs of fraud. The account names are slightly different from the real ones that represent Lightfoot and the transportation agencies. The fake accounts had far fewer followers.
But the fakes used the same photos, biographical text, and homepage links as the real thing.
The real accounts of Lightfoot and the transportation agencies did not have a blue or gray check mark on Friday. Lightfoot’s office said the city is aware of the fake accounts and is “working with Twitter to resolve this issue.” At least one of the fake accounts had been suspended on Friday.
Several agencies said they were waiting for more clarity from Twitter, which has slashed its staff since Musk acquired the San Francisco-based company for $44 billion last year. The confusion has raised concerns that Twitter could lose its status as a platform for receiving reliable and up-to-date information from authentic sources, including in an emergency.
The cost to maintain the blue tick ranges from $8 a month for individual users to a starting price of $1,000 a month to verify an organization’s account, plus a $50 monthly fee for each affiliate or employee account. But the meaning of the blue tick has changed to symbolize that the user has purchased a premium account that can help make their tweets more visible. It also includes other tools like the ability to edit tweets.
