Elon Musk had planned to roll out Twitter Blue subscriptions to curb misinformation, but it ran into trouble with fake accounts as soon as the paid service was launched. Musk thought that only real account holders would pay for the services, however, contrary to his plan, several fake accounts paid $8 each and were verified despite impersonating real accounts. This revealed that Twitter had no mechanism in place to cross-verify paid applications. Companies were also hit by some tweets from fake accounts posing as big companies.
Twitter’s relaunched premium service, which offers blue-check verification labels to anyone willing to pay $8 a month, was unavailable Friday, when the social media platform was flooded with a wave of fraudulent accounts. which she herself had approved. It is the latest whiplash-inducing change in the service where uncertainty has become the norm since billionaire Elon Musk took control two weeks ago.
Previously, blue checks were provided to government entities, corporations, celebrities and journalists verified by the platform to prevent impersonation. Now, anyone can get it as long as they have a phone, a credit card, and $8 a month.
A pretend account posing as a pharmaceutical giant Registered under Eli Lilly & Co. and the modified Twitter Blue System Tweeted that insulin was free, forcing the Indianapolis company to apologize. Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, Musk’s own companies Tesla and SpaceX were also impersonated, as well as accounts of various professional sports and political figures.
For advertisers who have grounded their business on Twitter, fake accounts may be the last straw: Musk’s rocky run atop the platform, triggering layoffs of half his staff and high-profile departures, has dented its survival. questions have been raised.
Cheaters can cause big problems, even if they are taken down quickly.
Lou Pascalis, a longtime marketing and media executive and former Bank of America head of global media, said they created a ‘highly reputational risk of investing in advertising on the platform’. Adding that with fake verified brand accounts, a picture emerges of a platform in disarray that no media professional will risk their careers by continuing to invest in advertising, and no governance or senior executive will be able to do so. will not condemn.
Adding to the confusion, Twitter now has two categories of ‘blue checks’, and they look similar. One involves verified accounts before Musk took the helm. It notes that ‘this account is verified because it is notable in government, news, entertainment or any other specified category’. The second notes that the account subscribes to Twitter Blue.
But Twitter Blue was not available for subscription as of Friday afternoon.
Musk tweeted on Thursday that the ‘too many corrupt Legacy Blue verification’ checkmarks are in place, so there is no choice but to remove Legacy Blue in the coming months.
On Thursday night, Twitter also started adding gray ‘official’ labels to some prominent accounts once again. It rolled out the labels earlier this week, only to eliminate them hours later.
They returned on Thursday night, at least for some accounts that included Twitter’s own as well as big companies like Amazon, Nike and Coca-Cola, before many disappeared again.
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Even celebrities didn’t seem to get the ‘official’ label.
Twitter is heavily dependent on ads and about 90% of its revenue comes from advertisers. But every change that Musk is rolling out? or rolling back? Makes the site less attractive to big brands.
“It’s become chaos,” said Richard Levick, CEO of the public relations firm Levick. ‘Who buys into the chaos?’
Levick said a bigger issue for Musk could be a risk to his reputation as a model tech executive, given the botched rollout of the variety verification and other changes.
“This is another example that hasn’t been thought through very well, and that’s what happens when you run,” Levick said. “Musk is known to be a dependable visionary and magician, he can’t lose that moniker and that’s the risk right now,” Levick said.
Twitter accounts for a small portion of total advertising spend for the largest companies that advertise on the platform. Google, Amazon and Meta account for around 75% of digital ads globally, with all other platforms combined making up the other 25%. According to Insider Intelligence, Twitter accounts for approximately 0.9% of global digital advertising spending.
Mark DiMassimo, creative head of marketing agency Digo, said, “For most marketers on a budget, Twitter has always been the thing that’s potentially too big to ignore completely, but not big enough to care about. “
“None of this is ever going to be a moral or ethical stance for advertisers,” he said.
(with agency inputs)