Elon Musk promised to address Twitter’s issue with fake accounts. My fictitious U.S. senator’s blue check mark indicates that there is still much work to be done.
On Twitter on Tuesday, @SenatorEdMarkey momentarily gained popularity. Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) wife Gisele Barreto congratulated @SenatorEdMarkey in a tweet that received 140,000 views.
The issue is that I, not Sen. Edward J. Markey, go by the handle @SenatorEdMarkey. It’s a test I created with the OK of the real Democrat from Massachusetts for Twitter’s $7.99 Blue “verification” service. Anyone could be perplexed, and I wouldn’t blame them: The senator’s name, image, and a blue check mark indicating that it has been “confirmed” are all on my test account.
Twitter doesn’t appear to be verifying very much, though.
This is my second opportunity to pass for the senator. Back in November, when Twitter first started charging a price for its recognizable blue check marks, I demonstrated how simple it was to pᴜrchasҽ official-looking status using a fake account named @realEdMarkey. Musk, who pᴜrchasҽd Twitter in October, engaged Markey in a Twitter argument over it. Then Musk shut down Blue and announced that “all verified accounts will be personally authenticated” in a future iteration before being granted the status of a checkmark.
On December 12, when Blue 2.0 (my title for it) officially released, I pulled another false Markey and requested verification. Twitter never requested to see a form of identity, but some of its new restrictions slowed down the process and likely deter some impatient impersonators. A blue check mark appeared on my @SenatorEdMarkey account last week. Oops! Again, I did it.
Requests for comment from Twitter received no response. Twitter suspended the @SenatorEdMarkey account after I posted this article.
Millions of Twitter users are wondering whether the social media platform is improving or deteriorating two months after Musk’s takeover. Is it even worthwhile to spend time on Twitter these days, or should we jump ship for Mastodon, Instagram, or TikTok?
The imitation circus we saw when Blue originally launched has not yet returned to Twitter. However, my test indicates that Twitter does not recognize the rιsks of false information or the importance of reliable sources. Twitter users run a higher dαngҽr of seeing something phony and believing it to be true under Musk’s direction. I’m spending less time on a site I can’t trust, but I’m not sure if Twitter is going to expire any time soon.
On December 12, when Blue 2.0 (my title for it) officially released, I pulled another false Markey and requested verification. Twitter never requested to see a form of identity, but some of its new restrictions slowed down the process and likely deter some impatient impersonators. A blue check mark appeared on my @SenatorEdMarkey account last week. Oops! Again, I did it.
Requests for comment from Twitter received no response. Twitter suspended the @SenatorEdMarkey account after I posted this article.
Millions of Twitter users are wondering whether the social media platform is improving or deteriorating two months after Musk’s takeover. Is it even worthwhile to spend time on Twitter these days, or should we jump ship for Mastodon, Instagram, or TikTok?
The imitation circus we saw when Blue originally launched has not yet returned to Twitter. However, my test indicates that Twitter does not recognize the rιsks of false information or the importance of reliable sources. Twitter users run a higher dαngҽr of seeing something phony and believing it to be true under Musk’s direction. I’m spending less time on a site I can’t trust, but I’m not sure if Twitter is going to expire any time soon.
How I got around verification once more
It was quite easy to create my imposter senator the first time. All I required to get Blue using a credit card was a new Twitter account that ran on an iPhone.
Twitter established two more barriers for Blue 2.0 in an effort to slow down humans and automated bots from creating bogus accounts. I needed a Twitter account that has been active for at least 90 days in order to test it; fresh accounts are not acceptable. One was donated to the cause by a coworker who had one but hadn’t used it in years. Twitter had us wait seven days before we could join up for Blue after we changed the name of the account to @SenatorEdMarkey.
Before I could join up for Blue, I also had to connect the account to a phone number. To do that, I went to the T-Mobile location in the mall and pᴜrchasҽd a $15 temporary number with no ID or name needed.
When I had all of those things, I used the internet to join up for Twitter Blue and paid with a credit card. At that point, I assumed Twitter would want me to provide identification, possibly by uploading a photo of my license. Being that the account was controlled by an arbitrary Gmail address rather than one that ended in senate.gov, I assumed Twitter might be suspιcιoᴜs. After searching for the word “senator” or perhaps even the names of famous persons with legacy verification status, I figured its verification system might confront me.
But no. An unquestioning blue check mark emerged on the fictitious Markey account after 7 days.
I don’t believe Twitter has ever explained what “manually authenticating” an account entails. Since Musk acquired Twitter, the firm has also drastically decreased its employees, making it unclear who would be available to perform the checking.
Impersonating other people is forbidden, according to Twitter, and accounts that do it rιsk suspension if it is discovered. But simply passing a law won’t cut it in 2023. Twitter must take something to actively prevent it from happening, and its Blue modifications are obviously insufficient. Authentication is being used more and more frequently online. Airbnb asks you snap a photo of your ID to rent a room; Facebook asks for an ID to gain access to hacked accounts.
Musk often tries to frame criticisms as culture wars — but evaluating how well a product’s core functions work isn’t a partisan act. It’s a tech review, and I do it with the same critical eye to new Apple iPhones, Amazon shopping results and Twitter check marks. I take the side of users, and last week published a column agreeing with Musk about the need to stop a form of online censorship called “shadowbanning.”
Why trust matters
In selling Blue subscriptions, Musk seems to be pursuing a number of objectives. He first requires a new source of income after incurring enormous debt to pᴜrchasҽ Twitter. Second, he wants a system to distinguish between legitimate users and bots, whose developers are less likely to pay a subscription. Finally, he said that leveling the playing field by making verified status available to more users will attract more individuals with diverse viewpoints to Twitter.
People who pᴜrchasҽ blue check marks might tweet more frequently. Twitter is weakening one aspect that helped it become a cultural powerhouse: You could believe it, but without actually completing the work to authenticate them. Although its legacy verification mechanism, which allowed the company to genuinely determine who owned an account, was opaque, it made it so that when a public figure, business, or celebrity tweeted, you would assume it was them.
The real Markey, a longtime opponent of Big Tech, informed me that Twitter had failed a fundamental test. Users shouldn’t be laughing, Markey added, because Elon Musk, who takes pride in being a tech entrepreneur, can’t put in place a working verification system.
He claimed that Twitter’s current leadership “has failed to protect the platform from misinformation, has not responded to my straightforward inquiries about their anti-fraud policies, and has not shown an understanding for the significance that their platform plays in our democracy.”
Twitter has announced it aims to provide various-colored verification marks for officials and organizations apart from its Blue services, reverting in part to its previous structure. While Twitter gave The Washington Post’s account a gold check mark for businesses and President Bιdҽn’s account a gray one, this won’t aid independent producers.
Additionally, Twitter hasn’t yet given senators’ accounts, like Markey’s, any additional distinctions.
Markey’s actual account still displays the blue checkmark that reads, “This is a legacy verified account,” as of the time of publication. It might or might not be noteworthy. This account is validated because it is a subscriber to Twitter Blue, according to my fictitious one.
There is a distinction, and it is important to Twitter’s users and future.
