Mornin’ Politocadoes!
For those who have valued their mental health and stay off Twitter, it’s been chaotic, to say the least since Elon Musk took over. His bizarre plan to toss out the old verification system, which helped weed out impersonator accounts, with a new essentially, pay-to-play, verification system has already started to have problems. The new system, which charges users $8 to get the Blue Checkmark, does not actually verify anything. At least with the old system, Twitter itself would verify the user. Instead, Musk appears to be relying on credit card companies and other tech companies like Apple to verify the users. So, as a result, Twitter users are having a fun time creating “verified” accounts of major political figures. Behold!
There’s also an instance of a UK man who set up a “verified” Trump account for about 2 hours or another someone claiming to be Rudy Giuliani, or Nintendo of America for that matter. And I say “verified” because Musk Twitter has tried to illustrate the difference between someone who buys one and say, public figures or representatives of national governments. You see, you have to click on their checkmark on their profile page to see if they’re only verified by using Twitter Blue.
Musk argued during a Twitter Spaces event with advertisers Wednesday that even wealthy bad actors such as state-sponsored disinformation agents would eventually be deterred because they may run out of credit card and phone numbers.
Asked by CNN to respond to that claim, Chris Krebs, the former director of the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, tweeted a GIF from the cartoon “Futurama” showing the character Fry narrowing his eyes in skepticism.
The current state of cybersecurity analysis is The Politics Thread shitposting.
So, this has also likely made the work of Twitter employees much more difficult, particularly given how much of the staff has been laid off at this point. Even if these accounts are permanently suspended, it’s adding an extra load of work for those employees, and makes any sources of information on the Hellsite that much harder to trust. Impersonation is only part of the problem. Anyone who uses Twitter is more likely to trust something from someone with a verified badge. It’s just begging to be abused by bad actors.
Welcome to Thursday! Please be excellent to each other in the comments. The Mayor McSquirrel Rule remains in effect. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, if you have not been vaccinated please consider finding time to get an appointment. If you have had only one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, do not forget about the second dose! A NEW BIVALENT COVID VACCINE is now available to fight against the latest variants! You can get any type of shot you like, provided you have already been double vaccinated. Even if you are vaccinated, please continue to maintain social distancing measures, wear masks in public areas in accordance with CDC guidelines in regard to your own vaccination status. EVEN VACCINATED INDIVIDUALS CAN STILL GET AND SPREAD IT.