When Elon Musk took control of Twitter in a $44 billion acquisition, he pledged to make significant changes to the platform. And his primary focus for Twitter — besides laying off 50 percent of the company, tweeting conspiracy theories and begging advertisers to stay onboard — has been turning Twitter’s verification feature into a pay-for-play product.
Twitter launched its new version of Twitter Blue on Wednesday, which offered a verified checkmark badge without ID verification to any user who pays the $8 monthly fee. Given that the original purpose of the verified checkmark was to signify that the account user was who they claim to be, eliminating ID verification opened up a predictable problem for anyone who looks to Twitter for sports news (or any reliable information in general).
For the price of $8, people were able to create fake accounts of prominent sports figures now with an accompanying blue checkmark. It immediately caused confusion on timelines as the fake accounts started popping up throughout the day.
This fake Adam Schefter tweet appears to be completely within Twitter’s stated new rules, so that’s good pic.twitter.com/a6sUpFHRAK
— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) November 9, 2022
Following sports transactions and news could become a total mess with the new verification system
Already fake LeBron and Aroldis Chapman tweets going around pic.twitter.com/vQgMqws1W0
— Joon Lee (@joonlee) November 9, 2022
It’s an issue that everyone saw coming, and it was totally self-inflicted on Twitter’s part. Verification served the purpose of letting users know that the verified account was authentic. Developers at Twitter were well aware of that because they launched an “Official” badge alongside verified checkmarks for prominent accounts before Musk decided he didn’t like it and killed the feature after a couple hours.
Twitter just killed the ‘✅ Official’ symbol after 3 hours of its launch. pic.twitter.com/Ws6Mr7fLcQ
— LetsCinema (@letscinema) November 9, 2022
Unless significant changes are made to the pay-for-verification model, Twitter is going to be an exhausting place for sports fans. It’s not going well!
This was how Twitter reacted
The new blue checks are causing chaos on sports Twitter 👀
Be careful with those RTs, friends.
— Randip Janda (@RandipJanda) November 9, 2022
fake check mark gonna be the death of sports twitter
— scott clarke (@scottclarkebbn) November 9, 2022
I now count two blue check accounts impersonating pro athletes, one of which is LeBron. This is great stuff
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) November 9, 2022
Well, that didn’t take long at all lol
(This is not Lebron James) pic.twitter.com/wzOXuOy3pr
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) November 9, 2022
This Twitter update just gave fake Woj / Shams accounts the Infinity Gauntlet
— 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒆 🌩 (@Three_Cone) November 9, 2022
With this horrible new Twitter update, please be extremely careful when reading a report. Always double check their profile.
We have impersonators running wild today. (Both of these aren’t true) pic.twitter.com/edBc8lgBRI
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) November 9, 2022
Everyone talks about politics Twitter endlessly, but sports Twitter is actually the thing keeping this site going. This new blue check thing is gonna tank it so hard, can't wait for NBA trade deadline week. pic.twitter.com/7CO2pcdoBM
— Aric Toler (@AricToler) November 9, 2022
Sports twitter will become absolute chaos with this new checkmark system pic.twitter.com/wdJXjN4Nf2
— Conor McCormick-Cavanagh (@ConorMichael28) November 9, 2022
Sports Twitter trying to figure out which accounts are fake or not today… pic.twitter.com/STYTAURpF0
— Adam Patrick (@Str8_Cash_Homey) November 9, 2022
Every account is going to need a close inspection before retweeting. What could go wrong?
