Free insulin to OJ Simpson's 'confession': Parody Twitter accounts misuse blue tick

Insulin is free, George W Bush misses killing Iraqis and OJ Simpson ‘did it’. These are just a few of the examples of the chaos unleashed on Twitter after billionaire Elon Musk rolled out the $8 a month Twitter Blue scheme. Now, anybody with $8 or roughly Rs 650 can be verified with a blue tick and many of them are not putting it to good use.

Several parody accounts of celebrities, politicians and even corporations have come up on Twitter, impersonating them and claiming whatever they feel like. The problem is, how do you know it’s not the real person because as it turns out anyone can get verified now if they have $8.

For instance, a verified, parody account of former US President George W Bush is claiming that he misses “killing Iraqis” and former UK PM Tony Blair’s verified but parody account agrees.

One particularly exciting news was when pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company “announced” insulin was now “free”. But that turned out to be a lie as well.
Several inappropriate tweets from these parody accounts have also been around.

Elon Musk himself wasn’t spared.

“Starting today we’ll begin offering Twitter Gold: a free subscription that that gets you yearly family vacations and nightly dinners with me. If your names is Grimes. Please come back. I love you,” read a tweet with the Tesla CEO’s name with a verified badge and his Twitter display picture.
Even Twitter itself has got a few parody pages already.
Here are some of the tweets doing the rounds from parody profiles:

And Senator Ted Cruz is apparently a “cannibal” according to one of his parody accounts.
Musk has weighed in on the issue from his actual profile, thankfully, this morning as well.

“Going forward, accounts engaged in parody must include “parody” in their name, not just in bio. To be more precise, accounts doing parody impersonations. Basically, tricking people is not ok,” he tweeted.
It remains to be seen how Musk handles this issue (blocking the accounts or modifying the Twitter Blue rules) as his longstanding idea of “free speech for all” begins to crumble, all thanks to him.