2022-11-11T13:08:13.018Z

Let’s recap:

On October 30, Elon Musk, CEO and Founder of Space X, CEO of Tesla, finally took charge of Twitter after a long-winded buyout of the platform.

In under a month, we’ve seen the verification process become irrelevant and confusing due to the subscription service, Twitter Blue being able to grant any user a blue tick, and there’s also been a huge firing of staff.

On November 11, Twitter Blue was removed entirely, and there’s been silence from Musk since.

2022-11-11T12:59:36.893Z

So, almost inevitably, it seems the Blue Tick verification process has been canned.

As the tweet above states, the chaos continues – hence why we’ve started this live blog. What is going on?

2022-11-11T12:57:01.056Z

Here’s an example of how hard some of these fake accounts are to spot:

2022-11-11T12:56:14.394Z

Musk himself fell victim to this, with countless fake accounts popping up claiming to be him – and with a Blue Tick to prove it. This seemed to be the final straw, as Musk then backtracked on some of the more lax elements of the new verification process.

2022-11-11T12:53:53.470Z

However, as people predicted, verified accounts started popping up on Twitter, and while many of them were obviously parodies, because they had the ‘Blue Tick’, it became difficult to tell, especially with the more subtle accounts.

Unsurprisingly, the individuals and companies that were being parodied weren’t too happy about this. 

Worryingly for Twitter, many brands started to announce that they would no longer advertise on the platform.

2022-11-11T12:47:12.087Z

Despite the concerns and complaints, Musk was initially dismissive.

By posting memes about people’s complaints, it left many people feeling that he wasn’t exactly taking the issue seriously.

2022-11-11T12:43:46.410Z

Perhaps the most controversial thing to come from Musk’s Twitter takeover has been the changes to how accounts are verified. 

Previously, if the verified account of a media outlet (such as TechRadar (opens in new tab)) or other organization published something, you would at least know that it came from an official source. The Blue Check also enabled Twitter users to tell the difference between the many celebrities on Twitter and users who were imitating them.

However, Musk implemented a change that would allow anyone to get verified for $8 a month.

This led to some people worrying that users could pretend to be official accounts and get easily verified, making it hard for people to tell which accounts were real – and which weren’t. And that’s exactly what happened.