Twitter is having trouble with a new paid sender verification service after a large number of fraudsters took to the social network claiming to be someone else.
Both pharmaceutical companies and famous people were affected.
Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk wants to introduce a verification symbol for who is the sender for those who are prepared to pay the equivalent of around SEK 80 a month.
In the past, the verification has mainly concerned public figures, where Twitter carried out the review.
But the service was down on Friday after Twitter was flooded with pranksters. A person pretending to represent the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co, announced that insulin is now free. The company was forced to apologize and lost billions.
Nintendo, Lockheed Martin and Musk’s own companies Tesla and Space X were also affected, as were sports stars and celebrities.
In practice, it is enough to own a phone, have a credit card and be able to pay 8 dollars a month to create an account with a certificate. The problem is that the purchased certificates look the same as Twitter’s approved certificates.
The setback for the expensed verification, called blue-check, came at the same time as several managers left the company. Among them are two security managers and a manager in the marketing and sales group.
The US consumer review authority FTC writes that it follows the development on Twitter “with deep concern”.
In the player above: Tech expert Evelina Galli analyzes it all!