Elon & Twitter

[italian bread]

The idea that a non-famous person might be impersonated and come to harm is even scarier to me.

I used Twitter's $8 'verification' to impersonate a famous YouTuber and trick their fans. It only took 25 minutes to set up and showed me how dangerous this new feature will be.​

It was way easier than I expected. With a disposable email address, a Google voice number, and a masked debit card (the address of which I actually set to Twitter's own headquarters), the subscription and blue check were mine.

Within a short amount of time, I was getting direct messages and mentions from users who were fans of the person whose YouTube channel I was impersonating. It would be so easy to use this for ill-gotten gains.
What if I told those fans I had a new merchandise drop I wanted them to check out, or that there was a new NFT or cryptocurrency opportunity they should know about? The possibilities for abuse of the new Twitter Blue are endless.
…..

It's not even just about celebrities or brands being impersonated​

What if an angry person decides to impersonate their ex-partner, get a verified account under their name, and post revenge porn or false complaints about their jobs or offensive statements? The thing that I keep thinking about is how this all took me less than half an hour, and I learned from it. Next time, it might take me just 15 minutes, and I'm not even a computer guy.

Think of the harm that could be caused by people who know what they're doing — and whose intent is not to parody, but to cause harm.

 

[STS-134]

Wrong. You can get a handle which is very close to another handle of a famous person, but you CANNOT duplicate the Display name of another blue-check handle.

So if your display name is registered as 'Stephen Curry' with a bio and picture, no one else can have the same Display name and picture.

The real Stephen Curry's Twitter handle is "stephencurry30". "StephenCurry30GSW" does not exist, and I could take it if I wanted to. Take that name, pay $8, and done. Blue checkmark.

 

[italian bread]

Notice how @nycgov does not have a blue check? If it did then no one else can have the "City of New York" display name or a variation of that. All it takes is $8.


Edit: It now has the 'Grey' check. Apparently they realized their stupidity and ponied up whatever it takes to get the Grey check. It was known for over a month that on 4/20 they will lose if they don't pay up.

Grey checkmarks are not paid for. It’s basically the old blue checkmark but is only meant for governments, government officials, and multilateral organizations. As opposed to the new blue check marks which are no longer free or verify accounts but do provide additional features, or the new gold check marks. It can all be very confusing.

This is what happens when Musk just tries everything that comes to mind and makes changes back and forth rather than coming up with a carefully thought out plan first.

 

[DrGriz]

Twitters business model is at this stage is survival, given they lost a ton of ad revenue.

Tell us again how that came about.

 

[italian bread]

The real Stephen Curry's Twitter handle is "stephencurry30". "StephenCurry30GSW" does not exist, and I could take it if I wanted to. Take that name, pay $8, and done. Blue checkmark.

You know what would be wild? If someone actually had the same name ”Stephen Curry”, paid $8 for a check mark, then offered to sell their autograph or other stuff to their followers.

 

[STS-134]

You know what would be wild? If someone actually had the same name ”Stephen Curry”, paid $8 for a check mark, then offered to sell their autograph or other stuff to their followers.

There's a reason why, in post #15583, I said Twitter is a cesspool that connects grifters to marks. And it's true now more than ever. You don't even need to legally change your name now, all you have to do is create a new account and pay $8.

The big problem isn't the fact that Twitter has a checkmark that means "I paid". The problem is that they used to have a checkmark that means "I'm verified" and instead of simply creating a new checkmark that means "I paid", the "I'm verified" checkmark then became a checkmark that means "I paid", and new "I'm verified" checkmarks were created for some of the categories that used to be verified with what is now the "I paid" checkmark. No well run company would ever do this because it's big time brand confusion. It's one thing if VW wants to kill Porsche and no longer make them. It's another if VW simultaneously kills Porsche and simultaneously transfers that brand name to Audi. And that the Audi S1 will henceforth be known as the Audi Porsche 911. On the one hand, this really shouldn't confuse people who follow the car market because in theory, everyone should know that the new Porsche is the old Audi. But "Porsche 911" means something to a lot of people and breaking that connection in their minds is pretty hard to do. There wouldn't be any trademark infringement issues here because the same parent company owns both brands although I have to wonder if they'd get in trouble with the FTC regardless of that, because it can be seen as a deceptive business practice. It would definitely generate some FTC complaints...

 

[GreenDriver]

Elon could have paid Ecuador to save the rainforest. Even a year ago, 15 years after the initial proposal, when he did have the money, he could have sent them a few billion. Seeing no other way to make money, basically, and indebted to China, Ecuador is now moving in on this:

Yasuní brims with life. It trills, squawks and hoots. The world’s tiniest monkeys, called pygmy marmosets, scamper over branches, and the world’s largest rodents, capybaras, loll along riverbanks.

In one parcel of just 25 hectares, or about 60 acres, scientists have documented roughly 1,000 species of native trees, around the same number that exist in the entire United States.

No region of land on Earth is more rich in biodiversity than this one, where the Amazon climbs into the foothills of the Andes, according to scientists. The genetic diversity is a vast, untapped resource that could unlock cures for diseases and open doors to technological innovations. But the fragmentation here has already started.

Ecuador Tried to Curb Drilling and Protect the Amazon. The Opposite Happened.

A novel idea to leave the country’s vast oil reserves in the ground fizzled for lack of international support. Now, struggling under painful debt, the government wants to expand drilling in the rainforest.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Electroman]

Tell us again how that came about.

Let me tell you how - the media creating a massive orchestrated FUD - Twitter is racist, Twitter is imploding, Twitter is a hate fest, Musk is a fraud - day in day out, and the cancel culture from liberals threatening to boycott companies that advertised on Twitter snowballed into companies pulling out their ad money. Simple as that.

Gaslighting will work for sometime. In this day and age, truth can't be suppressed for a long time. Twitter is a hate fest noise has already died down as users are realizing that it is not as what the media portrays at all. This blue check noise will also die down. And the sponsors will come back. But until then Twitter has to survive. It will.

 

[DrGriz]

Let me tell you how - the media creating a massive orchestrated FUD - Twitter is racist, Twitter is imploding, Twitter is a hate fest, Musk is a fraud - day in day out, and the cancel culture from liberals threatening to boycott companies that advertised on Twitter snowballed into companies pulling out their ad money. Simple as that.

Gaslighting will work for sometime. In this day and age, truth can't be suppressed for a long time. Twitter is a hate fest noise has already died down as users are realizing that it is not as what the media portrays at all. This blue check noise will also die down. And the sponsors will come back. But until then Twitter has to survive. It will.

Ah yes, that massive media conspiracy, to pick on a poor, downtrodden innocent victim, who loved everyone and only wanted to save the world.

 

[Knightshade]

Gaslighting will work for sometime.

Like insisting this is everyone's fault but Elons, and blaming the people who won't pay extortion money for the chaos that results?

 

[italian bread]

Like insisting this is everyone's fault but Elons, and blaming the people who won't pay extortion money for the chaos that results?

What if Musk posted on Reddit’s AITA?

Like…

I have a child who identifies as trans.
Apparently, my actions have caused my child such pain that they have changed their name and stated they no longer wish to be associated with me in any way.
BTW, I own one of the world’s biggest social media platforms and I recently removed hate speech protections against trans people. AITA?

Rinse and repeat with every dubious action Musk has ever done.

 

[italian bread]

Twitter Users With a Million Followers Are Getting 'Paid' Blue Checks, Like It or Not

It's another day, and there's another bizarre glitch in the Twitterverse. This time it involves paid Twitter Blue badges suddenly proliferating on accounts that reportedly have at least one million followers, except the account holders have not enrolled in the subscription service. In fact, some of the account holders are dead.

On Saturday, multiple users with reportedly at least a million Twitter followers noticed that their blue checks that had vanished on Friday, April 20 during Elon Musk's purge (which has predictably not gone well) of the legacy blue check verified accounts, are now reinstated. And many were unhappy with the change because they do not endorse Twitter Blue.

…
Wait I'm crying they're giving them for punishment now," Chrissy Teigen tweeted, sharing another account's exasperation at having regained the badge. After she shared that, she too received the now dreaded badge of shame. "It won't go away," she lamented.


Teigen then discovered a way to make it disappear. "It's gone! OK everyone be quiet no one move," she joked. She shared how to get rid of it with commentator Jon Favreau, who asked, "What the **** did I do to deserve this" when he saw the blue check on his account. "Change your name and it triggers a checkmark removal. But then don't talk about it again or you will get another," Teigen advised him. "Im serious lol."

What ever you do, do not stand in front of a mirror and say “blue checkmark” 3 times in a row!

 

[sunwarriors]

Twitter Users With a Million Followers Are Getting 'Paid' Blue Checks, Like It or Not

It's another day, and there's another bizarre glitch in the Twitterverse. This time it involves paid Twitter Blue badges suddenly proliferating on accounts that reportedly have at least one million followers, except the account holders have not enrolled in the subscription service. In fact, some of the account holders are dead.

On Saturday, multiple users with reportedly at least a million Twitter followers noticed that their blue checks that had vanished on Friday, April 20 during Elon Musk's purge (which has predictably not gone well) of the legacy blue check verified accounts, are now reinstated. And many were unhappy with the change because they do not endorse Twitter Blue.

…
Wait I'm crying they're giving them for punishment now," Chrissy Teigen tweeted, sharing another account's exasperation at having regained the badge. After she shared that, she too received the now dreaded badge of shame. "It won't go away," she lamented.


Teigen then discovered a way to make it disappear. "It's gone! OK everyone be quiet no one move," she joked. She shared how to get rid of it with commentator Jon Favreau, who asked, "What the **** did I do to deserve this" when he saw the blue check on his account. "Change your name and it triggers a checkmark removal. But then don't talk about it again or you will get another," Teigen advised him. "Im serious lol."

What ever you do, do not stand in front of a mirror and say “blue checkmark” 3 times in a row!

This is because Musk knows if people with millions of followers leave, Twitter becomes more irrelevant and less useful since fans will just move to wherever else the star moves to and are more appreciated.

So smart to bite/slap the hand that feeds you. /s

Randomly throwing sh** on the wall to see what sticks seems to be working so well too! /s

Good for rockets probably, not so much for social media.

Sorta nice that some of these folks are still off Twitter (only checked a few):

All the Celebrities Who've Quit Twitter Because of Elon Musk

From Elton John and Trent Reznor to Whoopi Goldberg and Jack White, our updating list of the stars who are saying bye to the app

www.rollingstone.com

"“And it turns out that Trent ‘nine inch nails’ Reznor is actually a crybaby ,” tweeted Musk about Reznor’s decision to leave Twitter."

 

[Buckminster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1649914167955005440

Makes sense

 

[STS-134]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1649914167955005440

Makes sense

And celebrities are actively trying to get rid of that "mark of shame": Celebrities now working to remove their apparently mandatory Twitter checkmarks

 

[Buckminster]

And celebrities are actively trying to get rid of that "mark of shame": Celebrities now working to remove their apparently mandatory Twitter checkmarks

All publicity is good publicity? I think so in this case given how it sounds to the masses who are paying more to Netflix etc.
What are they going to do? Go to Mastodon again...? Buy Twitter?
The accounts that matter are already grey and yellow check marked.
1m+ accounts will get blue checkmarks which will isolate the <1m C celebs.

 

[STS-134]

All publicity is good publicity? I think so in this case given how it sounds to the masses who are paying more to Netflix etc.
What are they going to do? Go to Mastodon again...? Buy Twitter?
The accounts that matter are already grey and yellow check marked.
1m+ accounts will get blue checkmarks which will isolate the <1m C celebs.

Gray is for government. Yellow/gold is for businesses. Blue means you paid, OR you have > 1M followers. Since blue can have two meanings, it has become an unwanted symbol of shame.

 

[SmokyPeat]

Yeah, my feeling is that people offended by the free checkmark should probably just quit Twitter. Social media in general is pretty artificial and gross, imo. I've never understood the appeal.

 

[italian bread]

Yeah, my feeling is that people offended by the free checkmark should probably just quit Twitter. Social media in general is pretty artificial and gross, imo. I've never understood the appeal.

I joined years ago so I could be notified about certain events. But I did notice there is a sense of satisfaction to posting something and then having people like or retweet it. I suppose it was a sense of feeling validated. But I left when Musk purchased it and I feel better without Twitter. Social media in general is a poor substitute for actual social gatherings, but I can understand the attraction of it and if it wasn’t for all of the trolling plus if people could clearly be aware of the effects of over using it, it could be a positive force. But the young, immature, or lonely most likely are ensnared by the dopamine effects by being validated over and over again.

 

[italian bread]

All publicity is good publicity? I think so in this case given how it sounds to the masses who are paying more to Netflix etc.
What are they going to do? Go to Mastodon again...? Buy Twitter?
The accounts that matter are already grey and yellow check marked.
1m+ accounts will get blue checkmarks which will isolate the <1m C celebs.

Many are using instagram. Plus it’s not mandatory to be on any social media platform.