Twitter’s verification process under the ownership of Elon Musk faces fresh backlash after accidentally verifying an explicit account that claimed to be linked to Disney.
The account, which used the handle @DisneyJuniorUK, possessed a gold verification badge – which is used to confirm the legitimacy of official organizations on the social media site.
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But it appears that the site – which has undergone huge and controversial overhauls since being purchased by Musk for $44 billion last year – mistook it as belonging to the House Of Mouse.
It comes days after the site stripped all verified users of their blue badges unless they opted to play for the subscription service Twitter Blue. This has led to concerns that it could cause huge issues with imitations of prolific users.
“No f****** way,” the account tweeted this morning after realizing they had secured the gold badge.
The account has since been suspended, but in a separate tweet, they said #FuckThatN***aElon and promoted Kasher Quon – a Detroit-based rapper.
Other tweets include a fake announcement that South Park would be heading to Disney Junior – an American TV channel run by the corporation which offers content suitable for children two to seven years old.
The elaborate prank appears to be the brainchild of Twitter user @7virtues_, who has already considered the potential legal ramifications from the entertainment giant.
“I’m not even kidding when I say that Disney might actually fuck my whole life up,” they wrote.
When contacted by Rolling Stone UK, Twitter’s press department auto-responded with a poo emoji — a bizarre practice brought in after the site’s communications team was largely decimated in controversial lay-offs instigated by Musk.
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Disney refused to comment when Rolling Stone UK contacted the corporation for comment.
Since taking over last summer, Musk has slashed the company’s workforce from about 7,500 employees to an estimated 2,000 in a bid to cut costs – while also overseeing the controversial overhaul of blue ticks.
When Twitter Blue was rolled out in November 2022, it led to huge imitation issues as paying users used their ticks to pretend they were actually the account of a high-profile celeb.
In one example, an account pretending to be former US president George W Bush – completed with a blue tick verification badge to prove it – tweeted: “I miss killing Iraqis [sad face emoji].”
A fake blue-tick account that claimed to be former UK PM Tony Blair then replied, “Same tbh [to be honest].”
Elsewhere, a fake OJ Simpson account tweeted ‘I Did It’ — in reference to his high profile acquittal of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Simpson in 1995.
Musk also opened up on his experiences of running the site in a rare BBC interview earlier this month, admitting it had been “painful” and he often finds himself sleeping in the company’s offices.
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