Sen. Ed Markey and Elon Musk.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images and Taylor Hill/Getty Images
Sen. Ed Markey said his account was “easily” impersonated with a fake account with a blue verification check.
Musk responded to the complaint, saying Markey’s real account “sounds like a parody.”
Musk laid off about half of Twitter’s staff, including public policy staff who verify politician accounts.
Sen. Ed Markey penned a letter to Elon Musk after someone impersonated his Twitter account with a blue checkmark. Musk responded on Twitter by saying the senator’s real account “sounds like a parody.”
In a letter addressed to Musk and shared on Twitter, Markey said a Washington Post reporter “easily created a fake Twitter account in my name, and by paying $8.00 was also able to obtain Twitter’s blue checkmark, signifying that Twitter had ‘verified’ the account was indeed that of a sitting U.S. senator.”
“It was not,” Markey’s letter to Musk continued. “Apparently, due to Twitter’s lax verification practices and apparent need for cash, anyone could pay $8.00 and impersonate someone on your platform.”
The Washington Post ran a story on Friday about getting verified “in minutes” while experimenting with the verification system and creating “imposter accounts” for Markey and a comedian. Both fake accounts were quickly verified, which the Post said makes the blue check “mostly worthless.”
Following the experiment, Markey said that Twitter “must explain how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again.”
“Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?” Musk said on Twitter in a reply to Markey’s tweet. He also asked why Markey is wearing a mask in his profile picture.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022
Musk said last week that he wants Twitter to be the “most accurate source of information,” though many of his tweets in the last few weeks contradict him. He tweeted a link to a news site spreading unfounded (and homophobic) claims about the assault on Paul Pelosi, which left the House Speaker’s husband hospitalized. He also tweeted that Twitter was the biggest driver of “clicks” on the internet, after which he was quickly fact-checked for being “100% wrong.”
Musk’s tweets have put him in hot water with advertisers, several of whom have suspended ads on the site. Since he completed his takeover of Twitter last month, he has laid off several top executives and a large chunk of the company’s staff, including public policy staff who verify politician accounts.