On this photo illustration, the image of Elon Musk is displayed on a pc screen and the brand of twitter on a cell phone in Ankara, Turkiye on October 06, 2022.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Twitter appears to have paused its $7.99/month Blue subscription service, which allowed people to pay for a verification check mark, after users were abusing it to impersonate brands and famous people.
Twitter launched the service earlier this week in its iPhone app, allowing users to purchase a checkmark that had previously been used to point out that an account was verified or official. As of Friday, the iPhone app not shows an option to join Twitter Blue.
The fast suspension of the service suggests that, at the very least currently, CEO Elon Musk’s big plan to generate recent revenue from users is not working as expected.
The paid subscription service led to a plethora of pranksters creating imposter accounts on Twitter. It left the platform much more ripe for misinformation, and plenty of cheaply acquired checkmarks were used to impersonate brands, politicians and celebrities with unflattering messages.
One current sales worker at Twitter said the corporate decided to drag back on Twitter Blue verification in response to the spate of impersonators.
The worker, who asked to stay unnamed since they weren’t authorized to talk on behalf of Twitter, said one account resembling pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly caused a significant issue when it tweeted out, “we’re excited to announce insulin is free now.”
The tweet remained on the social media platform for hours before it was taken down. The actual Eli Lilly account later tweeted: “We apologize to those that have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account.”
Eli Lilly’s stock price dropped sharply after the false message was posted, and so did other pharmaceutical firms including AbbVie, which was also impersonated on Twitter. At the moment, major stock indices were positive, amidst a market rally.
An impersonator also pilloried Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric automotive maker using the paid subscriber blue checkmark. An account with the handle that appeared as “@TeslaReal” wrote a flurry of disparaging tweets, one in all which said, “truthfully the 53% drop in stock price doesn’t phase[sic] us. if there’s anyone who knows about Crashing it’s us.”
The effect of so many changes on the Twitter platform presents a giant problem for advertisers, a few of which have already paused spending there.
Moreover, some users who already paid for the service said their recently acquired blue checkmarks have disappeared from their accounts.
A Twitter spokesperson was not immediately available for comment. Musk was not immediately available for comment.
The rollback of Twitter Blue verified comes at a time when Musk and Alex Spiro, who’s acting as Twitters top lawyer now, are working to reassure employees, advertisers and regulators that they’ll comply with all laws and terms of a previous FTC consent decree.
Elon Musk wrote in a companywide email obtained by CNBC on Thursday night, “I cannot emphasize enough that Twitter will do whatever it takes to stick to each the letter and spirit of the FTC consent decree. Anything you read on the contrary is completely false. The identical goes for every other government regulatory matters where Twitter operates.”
Spiro said in one other e-mail that followed that his team had spoken with FTC regulators on Thursday and that Twitter has its “first upcoming compliance check” with the agency soon. He emphasized that Twitter itself, not “individuals who work at Twitter” can be held accountable for any violations.
As NBC News previously reported, an exodus of Twitter executives since Musk took over has included the departure of the corporate’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, and chief of data security, Lea Kessner amongst many others involved in infrastructure, trust and safety.
