Twitter employees were selling blue check marks under the table

More details on the scheme, which was being run out of the verification department who were mostly fired yesterday 🤔

Twitter's previous page detailing the (apparent bullshit) steps to get verified is still up.

Archived it, since it'll be gone soon.

The messages don’t even make sense.

I don't get the importance of the blue ticks. No one takes Twitter seriously

This guy is claiming a marketing company offered him an anonymous blue checked account (no name attached) for $20,000.

R5 journalists do. It's important for entrepreneurs to have a blue ticked account, otherwise they won't receive media attention.

Most mainstream news is written based on journalists' Twitter feeds, and they only interact with verified accounts. I'm not exaggerating, by the way.

I think this may actually have been illegal. Twitter is a business, and the business claimed not to charge for this service. If employees were selling access to this service on the side, it is at the very least fraud. Probably embezzlement too?

R8 No different really than a bank lending officer taking money under the table to approve a loan.

R9 Feeling a little Dora Dumbfuck here.... what specific crime is that?

Yes, R9 embezzling from your employer by shaking down their customers is totally cool.

You guys know Musk is lying, right? The claim comes from some crypto nobody troll who has no proof -- he's just upset he never got a checkmark -- and Elon is saying "yup" to his claim because he thinks that's expert trolling.

OMG

R1 "Are you the feds?" Who did he think was after him, the SEC? It does prove he knew he was breaking the law, though.

OMG, a hacker pretending to be a Twitter employee to phish! Unbelievable!

R12

[Quote]The claim comes from some crypto nobody troll who has no proof -- he's just upset he never got a checkmark -- and Elon is saying "yup" to his claim because he thinks that's expert trolling.

The guy is a power user on Wall Street Bets, which is a massive internet subculture in its own right.

Also, in all fairness, he tried to get verified and was shaken down for $15,000.

Elon Musk is the owner of Twitter, and has verified (get it? VERIFIED) that this accusation is true.

[quote] Who did he think was after him, the SEC?

Who's "he"?

Oh, that's right, you don't know, because it's a bunch of unsourced text messages with no name or identifying information provided, and could be anything from some scammer trying to get a gullible crypto boy to send him $15K, or the crypto boy himself pretending to be a Twitter employee.

I'm assuming this situation must figure into the "just cause" that Musk fired most of the C suite under. Legit criminal activity.

R17 the Wall Street Bets guy referred to him as "he" repeatedly in the thread. He appears to know the guy's name, but hasn't outed him yet.

I always believe sock puppets over actual evidence.

[quote]The guy is a power user on Wall Street Bets

Irrelevant. He's a nobody.

[quote]Also, in all fairness, he tried to get verified and was shaken down for $15,000.

No, he posted a bunch of unverified, unsourced, and easily faked text messages where he claims a Twitter employee tried to shake him down. But even in his texts, he's not talking to the Twitter employee, he's talking to a "connector" and not someone who works for Twitter.

[quote]Elon Musk is the owner of Twitter, and has verified (get it? VERIFIED) that this accusation is true.

Elon Musk routinely posts lies, propaganda, misinformation, and fake news. Even the tweet that came before the "yup" where he said some of the bluechecks were never verified is a lie. He tried to make it sound like the early bluechecks were arbitrary and never got verified, when that's not true.

R21 I know someone who's an irrelevant nobody and posts lies, propaganda, misinformation, and fake news....

Of course the $15K story is complete bullshit.

Thing, Homosexuals, think.

Do most of the people with blue checkmarks--celebrities aside--have $15K or even $1.5K?

No.

If you have a byline in the Wall Street Journal, no one is dismissing your stories because you don't have a checkmark.

If you are an influential investment blogger with a sizable audience, they are not going to take your advice any less because you are not "verified" on Twitter.

The blue checkmarks were for Twitter's benefit, to stop them from getting sued when people used their platform to impersonate people or government agencies.

Which is not to say that this could never have happened -- the process was not transparent and it's possible that someone at Twitter figured this guy was an easy mark.

But the market of people willing to pay $15K for a Twitter checkmark is very very small.

^^Most of the people looking for checkmarks--people who would not instantly have been on Twitter's radar the way, say a Billie Eilish would have been--("she's famous, we need to give her a checkmark") were freelance journalists or Instagram/TikTok influencers who were hoping to build their audience. And again, it was known that the process was fairly capricious and so was never a big deal.

Musk seems to desperately want to be Joe Rogan and live in a world where his army of fanboys approve everything he does.

He is also scaring off more advertisers with each passing hour.

And his Troll persona means he won't get honest advice from users because they are afraid he will turn on them.

R23 Maybe the shakedowns were selective and everyone wasn't charged 🧐

If it weren't ridiculous that someone would spend BILLIONS on buying a company to wreck it, you'd swear that everything Musk is doing is intended to dismantle Twitter.

A lot of what's happening simply flies in the face of any viable post-acquisition strategy I've ever seen.

Assuming he's not willing to toss away billions, he's either a genius or the biggest fool ever.

R27 He does seem like he's intentionally destroying the company. Maybe he plans to file for bankruptcy.

I know verified folks. None were asked to pay for their verification.

How do I know?

Because at least 2 of them would have paid for it if they could have, and complained that they couldn't. Their verification came after multiple attempts and they still, to this day, talk about how they would have paid for it rather than go through the process they went through. And if they were told 15k they would have immediately blown the whistle because they are also cheap bastards and love to spill the tea.

R29 Are they passionate leftists whose politics align with the Twitter employees they were interacting with?

[quote]If it weren't ridiculous that someone would spend BILLIONS on buying a company to wreck it,

Isn't the deal being bankrolled by the Saudis though? They dig up billions in oil every day, what's wasting a few if they can get what they want.

And we can speculate what they want from owning one of the global SM networks.

[quote]The guy is a power user on Wall Street Bets, which is a massive internet subculture in its own right.

R16 He's a power user on Reddit!!!!!! Omgggggg

You're so fucking stupid

[quote] [R27] He does seem like he's intentionally destroying the company. Maybe he plans to file for bankruptcy.

Or run it into the ground so that it could be sold off to the Chinese in exchange for the preferential treatment of Tesla..

This is bullshit just to defend Musk charging. Even if true, how is he any better when pretty much doing the same thing?

Our Chief Strategy Officer is verified.

She does a lot of writing and speaking about business and really has no political bent

She said she had never thought much about getting verified because she'd built a decent enough following on Twitter and LinkedIn and because it didn't matter much--people who cared about this area of business knew who she was.

About five years ago she spoke at a conference on a panel with someone from Twitter. After, he told her he was surprised she was not verified given her expertise and he'd put it in motion. A week or so later she got an email asking her to confirm some details and a week or so after that she got another email congratulating her for being verified.

No money had exchanged hands

For actors, musicians et al, their management agency/talent agency have someone at Twitter they reach out to once the person starts to become well known(ish).

Or did, anyway, before all the layoffs.

I know tons of academics, physicians and writers with blue check marks. None were asked to pay for it. If anyone wants to read a properly vetted story about a social media verification scheme, here's a recent one about Instagram fraud.

I went through the verification process, no one ever asked for money. They were assholes, but never asked for money.

R16, FAKE NEWS!

The vociferous Musk defender is also pushing QAnon conspiracy theories elsewhere. You know, secret cabals controlling Hollywood celebrities.

Except R26, as I'd noted, the pool of people willing to pay $1500, let alone $15K for a blue checkmark was exceedingly small.

Several years ago a friend of mine with several popular books, one a best-seller, tried to get verified through her publisher, and they even offered to pay for it and the verification of others, apparently thinking you had to pay an "application fee," but were turned down. Every single one of their authors, even the ones with huge best-sellers, never got verified.

I'd think that, if they were shaking people down for money, they could have made a mint on that one publishing house alone.

Wow, r29. I laughed at "there really is MK-Ultra going on with these celebrities" because it's so stupid it doesn't even make sense.

I would not discount someone at Twitter thinking "we'll tell him it costs $15K and then he'll finally leave us alone."

Let me suck your feet and cock under the table

I'm just surprised how fast he screwed it up

R31 Twitter has been bankrolled by Saudis for the entirety of its existence. So have Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Instagram. How did you not know this?

R43 Not sure why someone would do something that stupid, but ok.

I do think a lot of Twitter employees were useless. It was essentially daycare for overeducated adults.

R48 There was a video of some faggy queen recording herself to see if she was fired, it was so cringe.

R49 What I don't understand is why they were surprised? Elon had legally purchased the company like two weeks prior. The day was coming, they should have been out job searching already.

I'm loving all the Twittersphere angst, even if I hate Musk, I ike to see people freak out about it, it's what you get for using Twitter.

I'm loving all the Twittersphere angst, even if I hate Musk, I ike to see people freak out about it, it's what you get for using Twitter.

I must admit that I don't get the importance o the blue check mark. Legitimacy on social media seems like such silly thing. Sure, I get it when it comes to journalism, but then the authority comes from the name, like, say, news agency Reuters. The recognizable name provides the legitimacy and authenticity, not some blue check mark.

People, desperate to be taken seriously, fall for such gimmicks instead of letting time and their action do the work.

R53 Again, it's about controlling media coverage and public opinion. Propaganda.

[quote]Twitter has been bankrolled by Saudis for the entirety of its existence. So have Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Instagram. How did you not know this?

MS, AAPL and META are public companies. Musk's Twitter is a private company.

Bankrolling a private company is a very different beast in terms of disclosure and transparency than being a public shareholder or IPO'ing.

Because with the death of the newspaper industry R53 a lot of journos were working freelance

The need actually was on Twitter to verify that these people were legit journos and not Russian bots--not the other way around

WSB is a notorious - and still anonymous - pump and dump stock/crypto account. I think they were behind the Gamestop squeeze.

[quote] [R53] Again, it's about controlling media coverage and public opinion. Propaganda.

[quote] The need actually was on Twitter to verify that these people were legit journos and not Russian bots--

I totally get that. And that is why I pointed out that these guys are desperate. They want to control and establish themselves quickly. And that, to me, is silly.

[quote] People, desperate to be taken seriously, fall for such gimmicks instead of letting time and their action do the work.

Social media is a new game. You can add your credentials on your profile and provide proof of your experience, but no! A blue check mark is better, much better! That sure sets you apart from the trolls and bots.

I can believe this and of IG too. I’ve seen the most random people/pages with the blue check mark.

R28, no, it sounds like he’s trying to expand the reach beyond shut-in weirdos with bizarre political takes.

I don’t really know much about Twitter, so I was surprised to read it doesn’t have a lot of users in the grand scheme of things. Because of that, they don’t get a lot of advertisers, which is why it’s unprofitable. Is that true? All you hear about about is Twitter’s influence.

Most of the people he fired protected minorities. Now, it’s open season on minorities. Any gay person defending him is a fool.

I know Musk is supposedly the richest man in the world but I have no fucking clue how he got there. He’s a terrible businessman. Once he took over, he should have taken a position that Twitter is great, there are a few issues but we have a handle on it. If there’s one thing investors and advertisers hate it’s turmoil. Every day he reinforces the idea that Twitter is a mess, more advertisers leave. Maybe it’s true—maybe he wants to destroy it. But the brilliant thing about social media is there’s always another platform down the road to take its place.

I think the Trumpers WANT him to destroy it thinking the "libtards" will flock to Truth Social or that other shitty right wing site thinking they will then be able to "own" them but that ain't ever happening.

[quote][R29] Are they passionate leftists whose politics align with the Twitter employees they were interacting with?

r30/OP - You sure do seem like you're trolling...

Yesterday I saw an in-depth expose of exactly who Musk is firing. Given that, I don't believe a work of OP's original article/tweet. It sounds like Elon's made-up excuse for the purge. He's become like Trump -doing exactly what he accuses others of doing. Welcome to the Twitter Hellscape!

R66 Where was that and what did it say, specifically?

You can absolutely purchase verifieds, as well as followers and likes for both Twitter and Instagram. The going rate is about 15K. If you have a connection, you can go directly to the source, per OP's link. Otherwise, there is usually a middleman who will do the things needed to get the verification or follow the steps needed to get verified.

I know this for experience. I hate Instagram, but it's a necessary evil for the most part. It's very hard to get followers these days, hence even hos on Grindr trying to get you to follow them vs. the early days when nobody gave a fuck and you would just follow someone with no throught to it. I have paid for most of subscribers, likes and views which then gave me the "credibility" to then actually get legitimate followers. When you see a new celeb or endeavor go from new account to 10M subscribers overnight, it's mostly paid. I am simply a product person and not an influencer, but for influencers, the check mark meant something and dramatically can increase monetization. The 15K was a worthwhile investment for some.

It's all a sham, especially Twitter. I think it's interesting to see where it all goes. Maybe the $8 subscription will de-legitimize some of these quaks that DL: often uses as sources. Just because they had a check mark pre-Musk, doesn't mean they are worth listening to. I would love to see all these celebs quit, especially Yashar Ali and all of the cancel culture basement dwellers who preach while having closets full of skeletons. Let Musk destroy Twitter and I will toast marshmallows in its ashes. Flush that turn Zuckerberg down the toilet as well. Meta is hemorrhaging.

R68

[Quote]Maybe the $8 subscription will de-legitimize some of these quaks that DL: often uses as sources. Just because they had a check mark pre-Musk, doesn't mean they are worth listening to. I would love to see all these celebs quit, especially Yashar Ali and all of the cancel culture basement dwellers who preach while having closets full of skeletons.

Aaron Rupar! I hate him.

Has DL Icon & active Twitter commentator Roxanne Gay weighed in on this at all? I feel like like she might have something to say about all this. Maybe she's too exhausted to bother.

R70 She will NOT be migrating to Mastadon. She will NOT go gently into that good night.

R67, there are rumors thousands of the fired employees were transgender.

If true, they likely will not remain silent for long.

Thank you, R71. What I love about Roxane and what makes her a true DLer is that in her tweets she often says," I don't care what you think", "I don't want an expiation", and" I won't be listening if you decide to provide one". I just love her and she is not someone I would typically adore.

[quote] there are rumors thousands of the fired employees were transgender.

Where? On Gab? OrTruth Social?

R74 funnily enough, on Twitter.

R73 I often wonder how self aware she actually is. She veers into self-parody sometimes...

Stick a fork in it this bird is cooked...

Now Musk will think he can sell the blue check marks for $15,000.

The one thing that I am worried about is that a lot of tech companies are doing mass lay offs currently - Lyft, GrubHub, Meta and many more are on hiring freezes.. Some people think that this recession will more likely mimic the dot com bust of the early 2000's. None of these companies have been turning a profit. I think 2023 is going to be a tough year.

It is not news that you can buy Twitter followers R68 - a simple Google search reveals that, plus the NYT did huge expose into it about five years ago, that resulted in ... no changes whatsoever.

As for buying a check mark, the market for that sort of thing, even if it were true, is minute.

Influencers and people of that ilk who make money from brands for their social media accounts don't care about Twitter-- too few users.

And freelance journalists who do care - Aaron Rupar, name-checked above is a good example-- don't have $1500, let alone $15000 for that.

A lot of those companies (Uber, Lyft, food delivery services) were never truly profitable to start with. They initially got huge injections of money from the Silicon Valley and elsewhere and reeled in a huge customer base. Now, they actually have to start making profit without that cash subsidy and deliver their services at the price that would generate actually profit. And that's why an Uber ride that used to cost you $15 a couple of years ago is now $30.

[quote] Musk is supposedly the richest man in the world but I have no fucking clue how he got there. He’s a terrible businessman.

I recollect a young man putting the same question to Eddie the Dude. "Son," Eddie told him, "all you paid was the looking price. Lessons are extra."

If Musk or someone is playing the looooooong game, there are so many possibilities to his current course of action that you'd have to be a chess and bridge grandmaster to see all the possible outcomes.

By planting the notion of blue checks being for sale, someone has effectively called into question the validity and reliability of ALL blue checks, making everything of questionable truth.

By doing so when the company is in turmoil, it makes verifying such claims almost impossible to verify or dispute.

By creating so many disgruntled employees, it creates a huge umbrella of plausible deniability for virtually anything and everything from this point forward - both for the company and for trolls, bots, and intentional malcontents.

What this "news" and all the other actions taken since Musk took over actually does is dramatically reduce credibility of past tweets which may be used in the future as a weapon against his interests, as well as allows his supporters to disavow past tweets at their convenience.

Yes, the fact is that everyone hangs onto what Elon Musk tweets. So the fact that he responded affirmatively to that tweet amplifies this issue and calls the whole blue check thing into doubt. Which for a libertarian borderline anarchist like him is great.

The reality is that while I'm pretty sure that some blue ticks were sold for big money (corruption exists everywhere) the vast majority were verifying legitimate people like journalists and politicians which helped prevent impersonators and fake news from taking hold.

I think perhaps the one thing that all Americans can unite upon is the hope the Musk will drive the company into the ground and Meta continues to tank. While another beast will replace them, it would be nice to see them go.

R85 hear hear.

Here's another accusation. He says he was given the offer by a PR firm in Los Angeles that wanted to represent him.

Question answered! The specific crime is "commercial bribery" in California.

R10 The crime would be commercial bribery. It's primarily a state concern, so details vary a bit, but here's California's law:

"Any employee who solicits, accepts, or agrees to accept money or any thing of value from a person other than his or her employer, other than in trust for the employer, corruptly and without the knowledge or consent of the employer, in return for using or agreeing to use his or her position for the benefit of that other person, and any person who offers or gives an employee money or any thing of value under those circumstances, is guilty of commercial bribery." Cal. Pen. Code § 641.3(a).

R71: OMG that tweet is the FIRST time I see anything remotely resembling a sense of humor from Ms Rose

[quote] The specific crime is "commercial bribery" in California.

No wonder they are so desperate to take Elon down

[quote]Influencers and people of that ilk who make money from brands for their social media accounts don't care about Twitter-- too few users.

True, influencers now are on Instagram, Tiktok, youtube, the visually-based SM media.

DL, remember when Elon tweeted about buying BTC? TESLA and Bitcoin shares exploded. At that moment he sold a big chunk of TSLA shares. Basically he used Twitter to manipulate the share price and do a bit of insider trading.

I think SEC has some beef with him for that and other 'incidents' which is why he announced he became a Republican not long ago, and then out of nowhere decided to buy Twitter for 'free speech'.

[quote]Maybe the $8 subscription will de-legitimize some of these quaks that DL: often uses as sources.

You write like this and you want us to think you're some knowledgeable insider. Okay.

Hold on, let me write it in a way you'll understand: "oky: I be-lieve you."

If the fired employees were involved in criminal activity, the WARN Act wouldn't apply to them.

Former Twitter employees and CCP shills throwing hissy fits and spreading lies and propaganda again in the comments.

This has seriously gone down the drain.

I smell the fecal odor of Matt-fatso in many of these replies.

Elon's latest bright idea is to use 'community ranking' to mark veracity of statements/opinions. Which I think means upvoting / downvoting (maybe like reddit) so that the most upvoted tweet will be the most true, and vice versa.

Which will only lead to more bots, bought upvotes/downvotes and campaign-style up/downvoting. Anyone familiar with fan campaigns for online voting will know the drill.

The shitshow continues

As just about everyone predicted, many of his new blue checkmarks are accounts impersonating famous people... and Elon Musk

So he announces that anyone doing that without a clearly marked "Parody" on the bio is permanently booted and then actually boots off a bunch of people who were mocking him with their fake accounts.

Great, but he in unaware of the tenacity of trolls-- easy enough to get a new email, spoof an IP address -- Dorsey faced this issue daily.

Plus, it's easy to figure out who the fake Kim Kardashian is. Not that hard when trolls are pretending to be small town police departments, journalists in small cities in El Salvador, etc.

The thing everyone keeps commenting on is how quickly Musk has broken the platform, almost overnight. Which is not good given that Tuesday is Election Day.

There are tons of impersonating accounts for various famous people - celebrities, musicians, athletes, etc. Mostly by fans and/or haters. Haven't heard any of them being banned en masse under the new regime.

Then you've been off Twitter today R100

It's all Musk has been tweeting about since around noon

If that is paywalled

I fucking knew it. No wonder I kept seeing a bunch of fucking nobodies with verified accounts. Having the blue check greatly increases the visibility of your tweets. It also increases the chances of them being seen by and replied to by more prominent verified users (celebs).

Motherfucker.

Sounds like the WSB guy was being scammed by a yahoo-yahoo/g-boy…the “my guy” was a dead giveaway. The “proof” he provides contradicts his claims, yet we have a whole thread full of people defending an obvious disinformation campaign.

What makes this even funnier is that people take financial advice to “the moon” from someone that isn’t smart enough to realize a verification process is not simple, talk less for a made-up persona. He wanted the easy way out to continue to grift and he got caught in the web. Good.

Crypto bros will stick together and Elon is shining example that being rich doesn’t mean you are smart. He will likely always be rich but his reversal of fortune will be catastrophic. Kind of sad to watch but whatever.

[quote]Then you've been off Twitter today

Did he ban accounts impersonating others than him? And how many?

R87, a PR firm handling the verification process on behalf of a client does not constitute fraud or bribery: they’re rendering a service on the clients behalf. The author didn’t have the money, so he backed out.

This is no different than doing your taxes yourself vs. hiring a firm to do the work for you. And, even then, you’ll pay more for a tax specialist compared to an H&R Block or Jackson-Hewitt preparer.

Being authenticated on social media adds to a user’s ability to earn income but only Twitter collects the advertising revenue. Charging $8/month on top is overboard.

[quote]What makes this even funnier is that people take financial advice to “the moon” from someone that isn’t smart enough to realize a verification process is not simple,

We don't even know who's behind the account, it has the WSB (Wall Street Bets) community in their name but anyone can do that. I know of WSB from reddit, they are sort of pump and dump, sort of chest-thumping option players. People may have heard of them around the Gamestop / Robin Hood/ hedge funds saga.

Musk ruins the Twitter brand, to what end? Why would any user consider using Twitter to make money for himself when Musk creates one problem after the other?

If he wanted that Asian "one app for everything", why using Twitter when he and his Silicon Valley buddies could've come up with their own concept and use their tech clout to promote the shit out of that app and make it the biggest thing in social media within a year or two? Did failures like Quibi scare them off?

R108 That's the thing, Twitter isn't so much about the tech but about the established userbase which includes a lot of journalists, politicians, academics, local government, celebrities. Twitter drives the news quite a lot and is informative. Elon buying it was ideological. It's actually quite scary and suspicious what he's doing.

Who cares about any of this, most people don't take Twitter seriously. Elon Musty Odor buying Twitter, will be yet another nail in Twitter's coffin.

You acting kinda shady… ain’t calling me baby!

[quote] That's the thing, Twitter isn't so much about the tech but about the established userbase which includes a lot of journalists, politicians, academics, local government, celebrities.

Twitter is nothing without said userbase. When the audience abandons Twitter, content providers and advertisers go where the audience goes. No matter how many guys like Mike Lindell (MyPillow) or Elon Musk cast blame at anyone but themselves when the companies lose customers and users, we know the truth what has happened.

[quote]Musk ruins the Twitter brand, to what end?

There are a LOT of people who would pay big money to shut down the free exchange of information on an international scale.

Twitter goes and what's left? Facebook and its enormous fake news problem? YouTube and its shitty algorithms and millions of scammers? TikTok full of idiots posting fake everything? Instagram which is so poorly organized and focused on commerce that no real news or information can spread in any meaningful way?

Twitter is where people post videos from Ukraine or China or India, where they report on local union busting companies or sheriffs seen at Proud Boys events, or video of a cop killing someone, or videos of Teslas running over pedestrians, or clips of Republicans laughing about Trump being bought and paid for by Russians, or proof of what happened to Jamal Khashoggi, or a whole slew of things that many, many people would rather not be easily accessible.

Well, those yoga classes, Pumpkin Spice Lattes and $2M condos don’t pay themselves.

All these Social Media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc.) have a limited life-span. I would never invest in them for the long term.

OP is an idiot and repeating right wing bullshit in defence of giant baby Musk while he shits the bed.

I’ve been verified on Twitter for years and it cost me exactly zero.

R116 What was the process like? When did you go through it? Are you a public figure?

R113, something else will come along, just as it has in the social media age. I’ve felt for a long time that Twitter has gone the way of Facebook. It started out with useful stuff, but trolls and bots have ruined it.

The new blue checks have rolled out.