New York
CNN Business
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Twitter has suspended comedian Kathy Griffin for impersonating the company’s new owner, Elon Musk.
Griffin appeared to be the first celebrity to lose his tweeting privileges after a wave of prominent users posed as Musk over the weekend, aiming to highlight possible flaws in the social media company’s plans for a system. Check Check.
Musk has made an $8 Twitter subscription plan his main bet to boost company revenue. The new plan was hastily thrown over the weekend before the company finally decided delay service until after midterms.
Twitter Blue’s updated subscription plan gives paying users the ability to get a blue checkmark on their profiles, an option previously available exclusively to verified celebrities, politicians, journalists, and other public figures. Musk proposed the new feature as a way to fight spam on the platform.
But the partially implemented plan faced widespread backlash and, in a show of defiance, some celebrities on the platform posed as Musk over the weekend, sporting a blue check mark on their profiles.
Comedian Sarah Silverman used her verified account to troll Musk, copying his profile picture, cover image, and name. The only thing that distinguished a tweet from Silverman’s account was the @SarahKSilverman solve.
“I am an absolutist of freedom of expression and I eat breakfast every day”, Silverman tweeted Saturday. His account also retweeted posts supporting Democratic candidates.
Silverman’s account was labeled “temporarily restricted” on Sunday, with a warning that “there has been some unusual activity on this account” shown to visitors before clicking through to the profile. The comedian then changed her account to her usual form, complete with her own name and image.
TV actress Valerie Bertinelli also changed her account name to the CEOs of Twitter, tweeting Friday that ”
After changing his profile name to Musk, Bertinelli tweeted and retweeted his support for various Democratic candidates and hashtags, including “VoteBlueForDemocracy” and “#VoteBlueIn2022.”
The actress changed her account name to Valerie Bertinelli on Sunday. tweeting“[o]key-dokey I had fun and I think I made my point.”
on sunday, musk tweeted that, “Going forward, any Twitter handles that engage in phishing without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended.” He too tweeted that a name change on Twitter “will cause the temporary loss of the verified checkmark.”
Also, musk said Twitter users will no longer receive a warning before being suspended. “This will be clearly identified as a condition of signing up for Twitter Blue,” she said. tweeted.
Griffin’s account remained suspended Monday morning and it was unclear how long it would remain in effect. Musk taunted griffin on Sunday, joking that she “was suspended for posing as a comedian.” Musk also tweeted that Griffin could you get your account back paying $8 a month for Twitter Blue, though it was unclear if Musk was serious.
CNN fired faucet in 2017 after the comedian was photographed holding a bloody head that resembled that of then-President Donald Trump. Griffin had co-hosted the New Year’s Eve show alongside Anderson Cooper for a decade.
The crackdown on accounts comes after Musk bought the company and vowed to restore the accounts of users who had previously been 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 the account. check.
In recent months, Musk has shared Conspiracy theories about the attack on Paul Pelosi, I call Democrats, the party of “division and hate”, compared The former CEO of Twitter to Joseph Stalin and warned that “the virus of the awakened mind will destroy civilization”.