Elon Musk Suspends Twitter Accounts Impersonating Others, Without Using the Word “Parody”

JAKARTA - New Twitter owner Elon Musk said on Sunday, November 6 that anyone on the platform who operates an account impersonating someone else, without stating the word "parody" on their profile, will be permanently suspended from the microblogging service.

In a follow-up tweet, Musk said that, while the company used to issue warnings to copycats to give them a chance to rectify the situation, there will now be no more warnings, and suspensions are in place as soon as the breach occurs and is discovered by the Twitter team.

"Going forward, any Twitter account that engages in impersonation without clearly specifying 'parody' will be permanently suspended," Musk wrote. "Earlier, we issued warnings before suspension, but now that we've rolled out broad verification, there will be no warnings."

Even before Musk's tweet, Twitter had started shutting down a number of accounts where users had changed their profile names to "Elon Musk" in protest of the billionaire entrepreneur's plans to overhaul the verification system by tying him to the premium Twitter Blue tier, thus allowing anyone to get a tick. blue only by paying the new Blue rate of 8 US dollars per month.

According to a Digital Trends report, actor and comedian Kathy Griffin, for example, recently changed the name of her Twitter account to "Elon Musk" and then her account was suspended. It's not yet clear if the suspension will be permanent, as it appears his account was suspended before Musk posted the tweet.

Roswell actors Brendan Fehr and One Day at a Time's Valerie Bertinelli also changed their Twitter name to Elon Musk, but once they heard that the company was taking action, they deleted the name.

"We're not all Elon Musk anymore... because he locked those accounts," Fehr tweeted on Sunday. "But don't worry, he's still okay with anyone tweeting irresponsible lies and conspiracies so it's all fine and makes sense."

Bertinelli also tweeted. “Okay-dokey, I had fun and I think I made my point. I'm not the 'trend' type of girl. Never, never wanted to be."

Those who imitate Elon Musk, of course, are also subject to the new rules. Melbourne-based Hindi professor Ian Woolford, for example, recently changed his profile picture to the same one currently used by Elon Musk and started tweeting in Hindi about the recent crimes that occurred on Twitter. His account has now been suspended, presumably for failing to state that it was a parody account.

Writer Hannah Gais, who currently has a "non-parody" account as part of her account name, points out how the complexities of trying to get Twitter up and running seem to affect Musk. Gais shared a “how it started, how did it go” post, featuring a tweet posted by Musk 10 days ago, on the day the Twitter deal was running, saying, “Comedy is now legal on Twitter,” followed by his post on Sunday about imitation accounts.

Multiple reports on Sunday said that Twitter had confirmed that it was halting the rollout of account verification linked to Twitter Blue until after the midterm elections in the US.