Oops: Twitter Mistakenly Adds Blue Verified Checkmark on Fake Accounts
Someone’s found a way to fool Twitter into giving fake accounts a verified blue checkmark.
On Monday, a data scientist who goes by the name “Conspirador Norteño” uncovered something odd about six accounts that all recently received a verified badge from Twitter.
All the accounts were created on the same day, June 16. However, none had ever posted a tweet. The other oddity is how the accounts largely had the same 1,000 followers, which appear to have also been faked using new accounts created on June 19 and June 20.
The finding is a bad look for Twitter’s verification process, which is supposed to dole out special badges to accounts belonging to celebrities, public figures, and businesses as a sign they're real—and not imposters. In May, the company restarted offering the blue badges, which anyone can apply for. However, the eligibility is restricted to users involved in certain fields such as the government, entertainment, journalism, and activism.
Twitter confirmed the six accounts were fake, and has shut them down. “We mistakenly approved the verification applications of a small number of inauthentic (fake) accounts," a company spokesperson told PCMag. "We have now permanently suspended the accounts in question, and removed their verified badge, under our platform manipulation and spam policy."
However, the company didn’t comment on why the fake accounts received the blue verified checkmark in the first place
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