Twitter has made several mistakes in its latest batch of verifications.
The platform microblogging has confirmed to Daily Dot that it has permanently suspended a small number of fake accounts that it mistakenly verified within weeks of relaunching its public verification program. The bug came to light after Twitter user Conspirador Norteño discovered six verified accounts that had been created on June 16. None of these accounts had posted a single tweet and all of them used stock photos for profile photos and even photos that belong to other users.
Meet @aykacmis, @change, @anlamislar, @aykacti, @kayitlii, and @not frozen, a sextet of blue-check verified Twitter accounts created on June 16th, 2021. None has yet tweeted and all have roughly 1000 followers (and mostly the *same* followers).
cc: @ZellaQuixote pic.twitter.com/V82Wtu0SNr
– Northern Conspirator (@ conspirator0) July 12, 2021
According to Investigador Norteño, the six accounts had 976 suspicious followers in common and that all of them were part of a botnet made up of at least 1,212 accounts. Twitter attributed the error to a breach in verification procedures and claims it is trying to fix it, although it did not elaborate on how the error happened.
“We mistakenly approve the verification applications for a small number of fake accounts,” Twitter said to Daily Dot it’s a statement. “Now we have permanently suspended these accounts and have removed their verified badge, thus complying with our policy of manipulation and spam within the platform,” he added.
Twitter launched a new account verification request process in May. Since then the company has been inundated with requests and several users have complained that their accounts are not verified even though they consider they meet the requirements. The company has announced that it will provide more details to users on why their account was not verified via email.
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