New York CNN store —
Twitter has suspended comedian Kathy Griffin for impersonating the company’s new owner, Elon Musk.
Griffin appeared to be the first celebrity to lose her tweeting privileges after a wave of prominent users impersonating Musk over the weekend in a bid to underscore potential flaws in the social media company’s plans for an overhauled verification system.
Musk has made an $8 Twitter subscription plan his signature offer to boost the company’s revenue. The new plan was hastily rolled out over the weekend before the company finally decided to postpone the service until after the midterms.
The updated Twitter Blue subscription plan gives paying users the ability to get a blue tick on their profiles, an option previously only available to verified celebrities, politicians, journalists, and other public figures. Musk proposed the new feature to combat spam on the platform.
But the partially rolled out plan was met with widespread backlash, and defiantly some celebrities on the platform over the weekend posed as Musk, complete with a blue tick on their profiles.
Comedian Sarah Silverman used her verified account to troll Musk, copying his profile picture, cover photo, and name. The only thing that distinguished a tweet from Silverman’s account was that @SarahKSilverman handle.
“I’m a free speech absolutist and eat doody for breakfast every day,” Silverman said tweeted Saturday. Her account has also retweeted posts supporting Democratic candidates.
Silverman’s account was marked as “temporarily restricted” on Sunday, with a warning that “there has been some unusual activity from this account” that visitors saw before they clicked through to the profile. The comedian then changed her account back to the usual form, complete with her own name and picture.
TV actress Valerie Bertinelli also changed her Account designation to the CEOs of Twitter, tweet Friday that “[t]The blue tick simply means your identity has been verified. Scammers would have a harder time impersonating you. That no longer applies. Good luck out there!” She then replied to a follower who asked why the tick no longer applies. Write”[y]You can buy a blue tick for $7.99 a month without verifying who you are.”
After Bertinelli changed her profile name to Musk, she tweeted and retweeted support for several Democratic candidates and hashtags, including “VoteBlueForDemocracy” and “#VoteBlueIn2022.”
The actress changed her account name back to Valerie Bertinelli Sunday. tweet”[o]Key-Dokey, I had my fun and I think I made my point.
On Sunday, Musk tweeted that “going forward, all Twitter handlings that engage in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.” So did he tweeted that a name change on Twitter “results in a temporary loss of verified tick”.
Also musk said Twitter users will no longer receive a warning before being banned. “This is clearly marked as a condition of signing up for Twitter Blue,” he says tweeted.
Griffin’s account remained suspended as of Monday morning, and it was unclear how long it would remain in effect. musk scoffed Griffin Sunday, quipping that “she was suspended for posing as a comedian.” Musk also tweeted this Griffin could get her account back by paying $8 a month for Twitter Blue, though it wasn’t clear if Musk meant it.
CNN fired Griffin in 2017 after the comedian was photographed holding up a bloodied head resembling that of then-President Donald Trump. Griffin had co-hosted the New Year’s Eve program with Anderson Cooper for a decade.
The crackdown on accounts comes after Musk bought the company and promised to restore the accounts of users previously banned from the platform, most notably Trump. Musk has also said that he will limit the company’s content restrictions and require the paid subscription for account verification.
For the past few months, Musk has shared conspiracy theories about the attack on Paul Pelosi, called Democrats the party of “Division & Hate” compared The former CEO of Twitter to Joseph Stalin and warned that “the virus of the bright mind will destroy civilization”.