Twitter Takeover

Elon Musk buys Twitter

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Photo by James Duncan Davidson, thesuffolkjournal.com

Elon Musk delivering a Ted Talkback in 2013.

On Oct. 27, a deal between Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Twitter Inc. closed, resulting in Musk buying Twitter for $44 billion. With this, there are changes coming to the social media platform, according to nytimes.com.

A big change is the blue verification check. The blue verification check is used to make sure an account is “authentic, notable, and active,” according to twitter.com. Musk has also said that the subscription for the blue checkmark would be a monthly payment of $8. Previously, the blue check was only available to celebrities. Now, the new plan from the tech billionaire allows it to be an option for Twitter Blue subscribers, which is a premium version of Twitter, according to cnn.com.

Musk says that the Twitter Blue option for the check helps fight spam accounts on the social media platform. Several celebrities have tested the new system out by trolling the new CEO. Comedian Sarah Silverman changed her name, profile picture and cover image to look identical to Musk. The only thing different between the two was their Twitter handles, according to cnn.com.

Actress Valerie Bertinelli changed her account name on Twitter to the same as Musk’s as well. All of them made fun of Musk, who said that it would be a harder time to impersonate people with blue check marks. The actress changed her account back, as did the comedian, according to cnn.com.

Following this, Musk tweeted that going forward, anyone who impersonated someone else without specifying that it was a “parody” account would be “permanently suspended.” Also stating that any user who pays for Twitter Blue will not receive any warnings before being suspended, according to cnn.com

Comedian Kathy Griffin decided to test these waters, which got her account suspended. Musk said that the comedian “was suspended for impersonating a comedian.”

Griffin retaliated by logging into her deceased mother’s account, which had not been active since 2019 and impersonated Musk again—in part, tweeting the viral hashtag #FreeKathy. The CEO responded that she could have her account back for $8 a month with Twitter Blue. The comedian’s mother’s account has yet to be suspended, according to deadline.com.