00:00Twitter Blue has been a bit of a debacle from the get-go, with anonymous users initially co-opting the
00:05identities of famous individuals to impersonate and tweet under their names, forcing Elon Musk to take it offline until they
00:11had a better way to verify the identities of those who wanted the Blue check.
00:15Now there's another Twitter Blue controversy, though this time with the identities of dead celebrities. Famous people including Michael Jackson,
00:22Anthony Bourdain, and more, have all suddenly shown up with the Twitter Blue verification on those profiles. Verifications that indicate,
00:29quote, this account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.
00:34The Verge speculates this is simply a move to bring back the automatic verification on accounts with more than 1
00:39million subscribers. However, Twitter hasn't announced such a plan, and it's something that some say could be inconsiderate, given not
00:46only the description of the verified users, but also because of some of the deceased who have been verified.
00:51Those like famously murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which The Verge reports has that very blue tick on his account.
00:57Twitter Blue was meant to increase the revenue stream of Twitter, a company which is currently valued at about $20
01:02billion, having lost more than half its value since Musk bought it late last year.
Comments