Twitter's $8 Verification: Fake Tweets Of LeBron James, George Bush and O.J. Simpson Cause Chaos Elon Musk's $8 charge has verified trolls to spread fake news like wildfire. They at first, took to the social media page to imprsonate the Los Angeles Lakers account and tweet about LeBron James requesting a trade.
By Kavya Pillai •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
Elon Musk's $8 charge has verified trolls to spread fake news like wildfire. They at first, took to the social media page to impersonate the Los Angeles Lakers account and tweet about LeBron James requesting a trade.
A user after paying for his Twitter Blue Subscription under the handle @kIngjamez tweeted "I am officially requesting a trade." Right after which another impersonator of Adam Schefter who is an ESPN insider shared that the Las Vegas Raiders, Josh McDaniels, the head coach, had been fired.
This was not all, soon after the accessibility of the blue tick was started, a user created an account as former US President George W. Bush with the bio "so what if I did 9/11" and mocked his role in the Iraq war with a crude joke tweeting "I miss killing Iraqis" along with a sad-faced emoticon. Followed by another impersonator of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair tweeting, "Same tbh." The accounts were taken down after 10 hours of being live.
Following this former football star O.J. Simpson was impersonated and a tweet concerning his infamous murder trial in 1994 read "I'm ngl I did that shit". This tweet gained major traction with over 55,000 likes. The impersonator used the handle 'ThaReal0J32' which at first glance does not look much different to the real handle which has a 'The' in place of a 'Tha' and the letter 'O' instead of the number '0'.
This mass impersonation and spread of false news are predictable as any troll with access to $8 would resume any verified identity with absolute ease. Musk's Twitter seems to have curbed the issue with the introduction of their latest tag of 'official' for famous personalities, media houses and companies. Although this is a warning for other users to be vigilant and double-check the account before re-tweeting.
