Twitter pauses subscription verification after many fake accounts

Twitter has paused the option to purchase a subscription payment verification check after a spate of fake brand and celebrity accounts. The subscription should probably be available again by the end of next week.

New Twitter owner Elon Musk wrote this in a tweet on Sunday evening. He made no further statements about how the system should be better protected against fake accounts that appear deceptively real.

Twitter had just implemented the checkmark reorganization that Musk announced on Wednesday. So far, they have been awarded to celebrities, politicians and companies after an audit by Twitter.

Under the new model, anyone who pays $8 a month will get the check. There is no identity check. The tick looks the same in both cases. Whether you are dealing with a previously verified account or with a newly purchased tick will only become clear from the text after clicking on the symbol.

Some users created credible fake accounts with the ticks they bought, for example for basketball star LeBron James, the games company Nintendo and ex-President Donald Trump. Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly apologized to Twitter users who were led to believe by a fake account that insulin would be distributed for free in the future. An allegedly verified fake Chiquita account announced that it had overthrown the Brazilian government.

Musk bought Twitter two weeks ago for about $44 billion. Since then, the company has struggled with, among other things, the reluctance of large advertising customers. Ad revenue recently made up about 90 percent of Twitter revenue.

(sda/apa/dpa-afx)