Shortly after declaring “the bird is freed”, Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, unleashed his own particular brand of chaos across the platform.
In one of his first acts as CEO, the Tesla founder introduced a new paid verification system in early November 2022, ‘democratising’ access to the blue tick to anyone willing to stump up $8 a month. In no time, a slew of spoof accounts were running riot on the social network.
“We steal your water and sell it back to you lol,” declared one blue-ticked – but nonetheless fake – Nestlé account, while Mario flipped the bird (literally and figuratively) at the franchise’s owner from a verified, but also fake, Nintendo of America page. But it was a seemingly more innocuous message that arguably wrought greater havoc for the company at the centre of it: “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”
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