Twitter to Subject Impersonators to Permanent Ban: Elon Musk

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, speaks during the Satellite 2020 at the Washington Convention Center in Washington on March 9, 2020. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Elon Musk has announced a permanent ban on impersonators. He introduced the new regulation on Sunday.

“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” he posted on Twitter.

According to him, Twitter used to offer warnings before suspending accounts, but now that broad verification is being implemented, there would be “no exceptions” and no warnings.

The new policy will be identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue, he stressed.

“Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark,” Musk added.

The new regulation came after several celebrities and blue-check verified Twitter users allegedly changed their accounts to mimic the platform’s owner.

Prior to Musk’s statement, comedian Kathy Griffin’s account had been suspended for violating Twitter’s rules as she changed her profile name to “Elon Musk.”

The Twitter owner said that she can still get her account back if she agrees to pay $8 for the subscription fee.

The company previously required that users engaged in parody should, “distinguish themselves in both their account name and bio.”

Advocate for Free Speech

Before closing the acquisition of Twitter, the billionaire said that he would reverse Twitter’s permanent ban of former President Donald Trump, adding that if his bid is successful, permanent bans would be “extremely rare” and could be reserved for “spam” or “scam” accounts.

In one of his latest posts, Musk affirmed he is still a staunch advocate for free speech.

“My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk,” he posted on Sunday.

“Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission,” he added.

The platform on Nov. 5 launched its revamped subscription service dubbed “Twitter Blue.”

According to Musk, it is part of an effort to boost the numbers of the sought-after “verified” badge and remove spam bots.

On the same day, Musk claimed that Twitter employees were selling verification badges to certain users.

“Twitter employees were selling verification for upwards of $15,000. For certain accounts, mine included, they would refuse to verify you through the standard application and then privately offer to verify you for $$ behind the scenes. Investigation needed,” WSBChairman—a user with 900,000 followers—claimed on the platform on Nov. 5.

The Twitter CEO confirmed that user’s claim, responding: “Yup.”

Back on Oct. 30, the billionaire businessman confirmed that Twitter will be revising how it verifies users of the social media platform.

Jack Phillips and Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.