Twitter suspends Blue after impersonations

After reports of multiple impersonations of major brands and politiciansaccounts, Twitter suspends it’s Twitter Blue $8 verification process. An account impersonating Nintendo  tweeted an image of the Super Mario character holding up a middle finger. One posing as Eli Lilly & Co. tweeted that insulin was now free, forcing the company’s official account to say:

We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account

An internal Twitter memo confirmed the change:

An update on what we did tonight: hid the entry point to Twitter Blue, added the ‘official’ label for ONLY advertisers. Note: here is at least one way for users to sign up for Blue. Legacy Blue users can go to subscriptions and upgrade.

In an email to staff, Musk wrote:

Over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam

Yoel Roth, the company’s head of trust and safety also resigned