Elon Musk Cracks Down on Impersonation Accounts After Kathy Griffin, Other Blue Checks Change Profiles To Mock Him

Jim Watson/AFP, Getty Images

New Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced Sunday that Twitter will immediately ban users who are impersonating others, instead of the previous policy of warning accused impersonators. The change comes as multiple users changed details on their profiles to mimic Musk’s account or other high-profile accounts, mostly in response to Musk’s pending implementation of Twitter’s new subscriber-only verification program.

Based on social media posts and screenshots on Sunday, several users who changed their account’s usernames to appear like Musk’s, including comedian Kathy Griffin. Several of those accounts, including Griffin’s, appear to have been suspended after.

“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk tweeted on Sunday evening. “Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.

“This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue,” Musk added.

Further, Musk added, any verified users that change their name will temporarily lose their blue checkmarks.

Musk has clarified in further tweets that this change will not affect users using pseudonyms and he will not make exceptions for anyone, such as Hollywood celebrities.

Many users took the announcement as a direct reaction to several users that impersonated Musk over the weekend. Users shared screenshots of accounts that changed everything but their handle to match Musk’s account’s current bio and then were suspended afterwards.

Comedian and anti-Trump critic Kathy Griffin was used as one example, and according to a social post from an account on Mastodon, doing so was the reason her account was recently suspended.

Some users tweeted some of his tweets side-by-side with apparent impersonators, or accused Musk of hypocrisy over his past remarks about free speech and comedy on the website.

Other critics took the announcement as further proof that Musk’s changes to verification on Twitter will cause more issues than good.

Some conservatives and free-speech advocates also criticized Musk for advocating for permanent suspensions of users.

In apparent response to those criticisms, Musk tweeted, “My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” referring to the account @ElonJet, which is run by a college student and posts tweets tracking the activity of Musk’s private jet using publicly-available data.

Musk’s announcement is the latest development in a chaotic weekend for Twitter, which started with significant layoffs of its staff on Friday. That was followed by an accelerated rollout of the expanded Twitter Blue subscription program, which all verified users will have to join in order to gain or retain a verified checkmark on the website.

The changes were already declared in updates to the iOS edition of the app on Saturday, but by Sunday, Twitter reportedly decided to delay changes to verification until after Election Day.

Critics of Musk believe his changes to Twitter will result in disastrous results to content on the social network and rise in the spread of disinformation, especially right before midterm elections across the United States conclude on Tuesday.

In the mist of that, Musk has blamed “activists” for Twitter’s declining revenue and fleeing advertisers, although some of those advertisers have reportedly put the blame on Musk’s actions.

Following his announcement of verification policy, Musk made further tweets highlighting what he believes his changes can do for Twitter and society as a whole. “Widespread verification will democratize journalism & empower the voice of the people,” he tweeted Sunday.

“Twitter user numbers have increased significantly around the world since the deal was announced,” he also claimed in another tweet, “And these are very early days. As Twitter becomes by far the most reliable source of truth, it will be indispensable.”

—

The post Elon Musk Cracks Down on Impersonation Accounts After Kathy Griffin, Other Blue Checks Change Profiles To Mock Him first appeared on Mediaite.