Twitter will ban unmarked parody accounts, says Elon Musk.
The 51-year-old billionaire - who finalised his $44 billion purchase of the social media giant late last month - says that users who do not flag that their accounts are spoofs without warning.
This comes after numerous accounts changed their names to ‘Elon Musk’ to poke fun at the SpaceX founder and his approach of running the site since he took it over, which has included laying off large swathes of the workforce and asking people via polls how much he should charge for Twitter Blue, the premium tier of the website.
On Sunday (06.11.2022), Elon tweeted:Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying “parody” will be permanently suspended.
"Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning."
He added that "any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark".
Prior to this announcement, the Tesla founder outlined his opposition to removing accounts permanently - such as the former US President Donald Trump, who was disallowed from using Twitter after he was believed to have used the site to egg on the deadly insurrection at the Capitol during the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in January 2021 - but since taking over he has suspended accounts for posing under his name such as comedian Kathy Griffin and NFL star Chris Kluwe.
After it was reported Elon was holding back rolling out paid-for blue ticks until the after the US midterm elections, he said he had “no choice” but to make severe staff cutbacks - due to the site losing $4 million a day - which sparked concerns about the ability to content moderate despite his assurance his approach towards misinformation and harmful content stays “absolutely unchanged”.
