Welcome to the new Twitter. Here, everyone can be anyone and for the low, low price of $8, the company will give you a veneer of legitimacy to back it up ― at least temporarily.
Nearly two weeks into the company’s Elon Musk era, half of the employees have been laid off (prompting a class action lawsuit), large advertisers have paused their spending (leading to a “dire” financial situation), and Twitter’s previous system for verifying that people are who they claim to be has been deliberately demolished.
That means anyone can now set up an account pretending to be anyone else, and pay $8 for the checkmark that used to signify the account had been verified, but now means nothing.
That’s how “George W. Bush” on Thursday came to tweet, “I miss killing Iraqis ????” only for “Tony Blair” to respond, “Same tbh.”
The accounts, both fake, were eventually suspended ― but only after they gained widespread attention and more than nine hours after their initial tweets. It’s what advertisers might consider a “free-for-all hellscape.”
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