Twitter has long been a way for people to keep track of tornado watches, train delays, news alerts or the latest crime warnings from their local police department.
But when the Elon Musk-owned platform this week began stripping blue verification check marks from accounts that don’t pay monthly fees, it sent public agencies and other organizations around the world scrambling to show it. Left that they are trustworthy and avoid impersonators.
High-profile users who lost their blue checks on Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump. But checks were also removed from major transit systems from San Francisco to Paris, national parks like Yosemite, official weather trackers and the accounts of some elected officials.
Twitter had about 400,000 verified users under the original blue-check system. In the past, the check meant that Twitter verified that users were who they said they were.
While Twitter is now offering gold checks for “verified organizations” and gray checks for government organizations and their affiliates, it wasn’t always clear why some accounts had Fridays and others didn’t.
Fake accounts claiming to represent Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the city’s Department of Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation began sharing messages early Friday claiming that Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive — a major thoroughfare — is next Will be close to private traffic starting from the month.
A keen eye can spot clear signs of fraud. The account handles are slightly different from the authentic ones representing Lightfoot and transportation agencies. Fake also had very few followers.
But the fraudsters used the same pictures, biographical text and home page link as the original.
The actual accounts for Lightfoot and the transportation agencies did not have a blue or gray check mark as of Friday. Lightfoot’s office said the city is aware of the fake accounts and is “working with Twitter to resolve this matter.” At least one was suspended on Friday.
Several agencies said they were waiting for more clarity from Twitter, which has rapidly reduced its staff since Musk bought the San Francisco company for $44 billion last year. The confusion has raised concerns that Twitter could lose its position as a platform for receiving accurate, up-to-date information from authentic sources, including emergencies.
As a tornado was about to strike central New Jersey earlier this month, a go-to account for information was run by the National Weather Service branch in Mount Holly, New Jersey. At that time it was a blue cheque. It no longer has a check, although the main NWS account and some other regional branches now have a gray check marking them as official accounts.
Susan Buchanan, director of public affairs for the weather service, said the agency is in the process of applying for government agencies to receive the gray check mark. He declined to answer why some regional NWS branches lost their points and others did.
The cost of marking ranges from $8 per month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 per month to verify an organization, plus $50 per month for each affiliate or employee account. But the meaning of the blue check has changed to symbolize that the user has purchased a premium account that can help their Tweets be seen by more people. It also includes other features such as the ability to edit tweets.
Celebrity users, from basketball star LeBron James to author Stephen King and Star Trek’s William Shatner, have declined to join — though all three still had blue checks on Friday after Musk said he had signed up for them himself. have paid.
For users who still had the blue check, a popup message indicated that the account “is verified because they’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.” Verifying a phone number simply means that the person has a phone number and has verified that they have access to it — it does not verify the person’s identity.
Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts have paid to join Twitter Blue, according to an analysis by Travis Browne, a Berlin-based developer of software for tracking social media.
Musk’s move to end what he called a “lords and peasants system, who may or may not have a blue check mark” has incensed some high-profile users and pleased some right-wing figures and Musk fans who Thought the numbers were unfair. , But it hasn’t been an obvious money maker for the social media platform that has long relied on advertising for most of its revenue.
The mass removal of thousands of blue cheques, promised for weeks, was combined with a surprise move to drop some media organizations labeled as government-funded or state-affiliated. Musk first defended a policy that aligned public radio and TV stations in the US and other democracies with state-affiliated media in Russia and China, and then abruptly changed language, but now Twitter has removed the label without explanation. Completely removed. The changes come after National Public Radio and other outlets have already stopped using Twitter.
While some prominent users said they would stop using Twitter on BlueCheck, several public agencies appeared to remain with the service.
Asked on Friday about the German government’s continued use of Twitter, spokesman Christian Hoffmann said: “Of course we are following very closely what is happening on Twitter and we constantly ask ourselves whether there It is right to have a channel and how they should continue.”
Hoffman said the government was concerned about developments on Twitter in recent weeks and months, adding that ministries, spokespeople and Chancellor Olaf Scholz now have gray ticks “for which nothing is paid.”
City officials in Minneapolis applied for the gray check on the city’s main Twitter account about three weeks ago and received approval for it on Thursday.
Jordan Guildenbach, the city’s digital communications coordinator, said he plans to do the same for other city-run accounts, including the health department’s — which didn’t have a check mark as of Friday — but said Twitter’s system needs to be tested. As for assessing and deciding which accounts qualify” has never been really clear.
“Even with verification for an active shooter situation or weather-related event, or even more routine stuff like blizzards, dealing with misinformation and rumors is always a challenge,” Guildenbach said. “It’s just going to make it that much harder.”
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)