For two hours, Super Mario has put the middle finger on all of Twitterfrom an account verified by blue ticks for a fee wanted by Elon Musk. And besides this fake Nintendo account, there have been posts from parody versions of LeBron James, Donald Trump, Valve, and even Jesus Christ. All accounts verified by paying eight dollars a month.
From Super Mario to LeBron James: all the fake “blue ticks” on Twitter
Until last week, the blue ticks on Twitter meant that the accountablet had passed a verification process. So tweeting something to the Nintendo account meant addressing the social media team of the Mario, Link and Pikachu software house.
But Elon Musk, the new CEO of the social network, wanted to make the blue ticks something that you can buy with a subscription to Twitter Blue: 8 dollars a month for a verified account. The result? For two hours, a fake Nintendo USA account called “@nIntendoofus”, with its dear blue tick next to its name, showed a Mario who was the middle finger to all of Twitter.
A situation that perhaps will not make Nintendo itself very happy, which probably will think twice before paying for advertising space on social media. Since the latest tweet trending on Mario posted him a parody account.
From sports to religion, verified fake accounts for $ 8
But Mario isn’t the only victim of parody accounts with blue ticks on Twitter. For example, from the world of video games a finto account Valve (@valvesoftware) announced the arrival of Ricochet: Neon Prime, a non-existent mix between a classic game and the upcoming new launch from Valve. And a fake account of LeBron James (@KINGJames) announced he was leaving the Lakers to go “home”, playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Which is absolutely false.
The most worrying one, however, is a fake account of Donald Trump (which for the moment remains banned from Twitter), who with the name @DonTrumpReal wrote: “This is why Elon Musk’s plan doesn’t work ”.
Many other American political figures, big names in sport and not only have seen their name used by a parody account, with the verification of the blue ticks. Even the fake account of Jesus Christ (@jesus) wrote “Who has two thumbs and is it verified? “
Twitter’s response (and the end of the Official label)
Twitter for the moment is taking direct action, suspending the accounts of these users. But the fake Nintendo account stayed online for a couple of hours, Valve’s even longer. The company, which now also has the half of the employees after Musk’s massive layoffs, he must try to outsmart all these impostors. Who for the moment are just making fun of Musk and choosing him with Twitter Blue. But other more savvy users could spread fake news.
To answer this problem, in recent days Twitter had hypothesized an “Official” label to be placed next to institutional figures and some celebrities. So you know if it’s really a tweet comes from the White House or the New York Timesinstead of a troll who changed his name on Twitter.
But as TechCrunch points out, Musk has already ruled out this possibility. Not with an official press release in which he explains the situation, but by responding to a tweet from the YouTuber Marques Brownlee who spoke of the official label saying “I killed her“. What remains is the possibility to click on the blue check to understand how the account got the check, whether by paying or by notoriety. But it doesn’t seem like the simplest of solutions.
In another tweet, Musk wrote: “In the coming months on Twitter we will do a lot of stupid things. We will keep what works and change what doesn’t work ”. A phrase that seems more suitable for a small startup than for one of the largest social networks in the world. And we hope that Musk doesn’t adopt the same spirit on Tesla’s autonomous driving or SpaceX’s space launches: the result could be much more troubling than Mario being the mean.