The premium ‘Twitter Blue’ service is available to anyone for £6.99 a month in the UK ($8 a month in the US) – having previously been used to authenticate the accounts of public figures, including celebrities and journalists, who had checked and confirmed as genuine. But the revamped model has given credence to a number of fake accounts – with one parody purporting to be Jesus Christ receiving verification. The person behind the satirical account, who prefers to remain anonymous, started it 14 years ago in 2006. “Even though I’ve had it for so long, I was never sure I could verify it,” he told Business Insider. “I’ve applied for verification in the past and been denied, but when Elon Musk changed the verification rules and you could sign up for Twitter Blue and buy a verified check, I knew it was finally my time. It was instant. I bought a Twitter Blue subscription and when I finished confirming Apple Pay and opened Twitter again, I was verified.” Another fake account claimed insulin was free, forcing US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co to apologise. Just a fortnight after paying $44 billion to take control of Twitter in October, new owner Elon Musk has seen his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, impersonate his accounts. And the world’s richest man also appears to have two verified accounts, with one operating under the handle @JoshMalina proclaiming on Wednesday: “Good night. Twitter cleanup begins now.” The suspension came hours after the billionaire entrepreneur warned that Twitter could face bankruptcy, having laid off half its workforce. His new vision has prompted high-profile users including Stephen Fry to deactivate their accounts – as advertisers also raise fears about whether the platform can survive. Musk posted on Thursday: “There are too many corrupt blue ‘verification’ checkmarks so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in the coming months.” However, he also claimed Twitter hit an “all-time high in active users” on Friday, adding: “Twitter usage continues to grow. “One thing’s for sure: it’s not boring!” There are now two categories of ‘blue checks’ – but they look identical. Use Chrome browser for more accessible video player 2:10 Elon Musk has completed his $44bn (£38bn) acquisition of Twitter. One includes accounts that were verified before Musk took over, which say: “This account if verified because it is notable in government, news, entertainment, or another specified category.” The other confirms that the account is a Twitter Blue subscriber. Twitter Blue was not available on the online version of the platform, which stated that registration was only possible on the iPhone version. However, the iPhone version did not offer Twitter Blue as an option. The platform also seems indecisive about adding “official” tags to some prominent accounts, launching them before removing them hours earlier.
