Musk said Twitter will launch impersonation accounts as it rolls out a new verification system.

Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday that Twitter will permanently suspend all accounts on the social media platform that impersonate another account.

The platform’s new owner issued a warning and tweeted as “Elon Musk” after some celebrities changed their Twitter display names instead of their account names. most of the workforce.

“Going forward, Twitter that engages in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently banned,” Musk wrote. Twitter issued a warning before the suspension, but now says it is “extensively reviewing and will not issue a warning.”

In fact, “any name change” would force him to temporarily lose his verified checkmark, said the world’s richest man.

Comedian Kathy Griffin was suspended Sunday after changing her screen name to Mask. She told a Bloomberg reporter that she also used his profile picture.

“You don’t think all the content moderators got fired? LOL,” Griffin later joked on Mastodon, another social media platform where she set up an account last week.

Actor Valerie Bertinelli similarly appropriated Musk’s screen name, returning to her real name after posting a series of tweets endorsing the Democratic nominee on Saturday. I think it got through,” she tweeted.

Prior to the stunt, Bertinelli pointed out the original purpose of the blue verification checkmark. It was granted free of charge to anyone whose identity was verified by a Twitter employee. Journalists make up the majority of recipients. “It simply means that your identity has been verified. Scammers will have a hard time impersonating you,” he said.

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“That doesn’t apply anymore. Good luck!” she added.

The $8 verified accounts, he argues, are Musk’s way of democratizing the service. On Saturday, a Twitter update for iOS devices in Apple’s app store said that users who “sign up now” for the new “Verified Twitter Blue” were “just like celebrities, businesses and politicians. You’ll see a blue check next to your name.” I’m already following you.

The service would initially be available in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, but it wasn’t available on Sunday and it was unclear when it would go live.Esther Crawford, Twitter employee “It’s coming soon, but it hasn’t started yet,” he told the Associated Press.

Twitter did not respond to an email on Sunday seeking comment on the verified account issue and Griffin’s suspension.

Musk later said, “Twitter has to be the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.”

If the company strips current verified users of their blue checks (something that hasn’t happened before), it could exacerbate misinformation on its platform during Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Like Griffin, some Twitter users have already started migrating away from the platform after layoffs that reportedly began Friday, affecting about half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees. They fear that if moderation and verification breaks down, disinformation could be freely created on the Internet, the primary conduit for trustworthy communications from public authorities and others.

Many companies have paused advertising on their platforms over concerns that they could become more unruly under masks.

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tried to allay such concerns in a tweet on Friday. The company’s frontline content management staff are the group least affected by the layoffs, he said.

Musk tweeted late Friday that he had no choice but to cut staff “when the company is losing more than $4 million a day.” He did not provide details of the daily losses on Twitter, saying that employees who lost their jobs were provided with three months’ severance pay.

© 2022 The Canadian Press