Elon Musk has been making headlines since he entered the technology and Fintech sector with PayPal. Then came Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter. It’s early days, but we may have written more about Elon Musk than any other topic in the last year.
And today we bring it back to us because of the biggest mess on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social network and named himself CEO of the company. Since that day, it’s all bad decisions. Or so it seems from the number of rectifications he makes.
Twitter’s verified left, came back, left and is back… with the dead
After Elon Musk last week made good on his promise to remove blue check marks from Twitter accounts, it appears that numerous high-profile accounts have been re-verified, including several of deceased celebrities.
It’s likely that the reappearance of the blue check is part of a larger (but unannounced) plan by Twitter to reinstate verification for users with more than a million followers.
But if you hover your mouse over the blue ticks on the accounts of deceased celebrities, Twitter will tell you that they are verified “because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and have verified their phone number.”
Michael Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant, Barbara Walters, Anthony Bourdain and Paul Walker are just a few of the many deceased stars who have regained their verified status.
The platform even claims that prominent journalist and columnist Jamal Khashoggi is paying $8 a month despite being murdered in 2018. It seems like a sick joke.
In some cases it may be true that the organizations managing the accounts of dead users have requested verification. But many of the accounts being re-verified have been inactive for years.
Celebrities no longer want to be verified on Twitter
Some celebrities, such as LeBron James and Stephen King, have stated that they would not pay for verification. Instead, Musk has paid for their brands, a move that undermines his claim that paid verification is egalitarian.
Some users also pointed out that returning blue tics to the accounts of deceased celebrities also gives unwarranted prestige to the new paid verification system that convinces no one, only a minority.
In other words, it’s business as usual on the new Twitter: chaos reigns, verified or not. It is to Elon Musk’s credit that he has wiped out the little good that was left of Twitter. At this rate, there will be nothing left to stay by the end of the year.
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