Twitter verified a Washington Post columnist's fake US Senator Ed Markey account, after Elon Musk said “all verified accounts will be manually authenticated”
Elon Musk said Twitter would begin authenticating users who pay $8 for Blue. Our tech columnist was still able to get a checkmark for an impostor Sen. Ed Markey.
Washington PostGeoffrey A. Fowler
Context & Ripple Effects
In late November, Elon Musk said Twitter would begin manually authenticating paid accounts, layering blue checks for people, gold for companies, and gray for governments onto the $8 Blue subscription. This test by a Washington Post columnist shows the promise failing at its most sensitive point: an impostor account for a sitting US senator cleared verification.
The episode lands in the middle of Musk's broader campaign against the legacy checkmark system, which he has called corrupt — a campaign that later produced the removal of legacy blue checkmarks and even unwanted Blue checkmarks assigned to vocal critics like @dril and Kara Swisher. If paid verification cannot stop a fake senator, the badge stops functioning as an identity signal at all.
First-order effects
Ed Markey is directly exposed: a verified impostor account in his name means constituents and press cannot rely on the checkmark to confirm his communications, forcing his office to authenticate statements out-of-band.
Twitter's $8 Blue product takes an immediate credibility hit — the manual authentication Musk promised is demonstrably not gating who gets a checkmark, undercutting the core thing subscribers are paying for.
Second-order effects
Institutions that leaned on verification — newsrooms, government offices, public figures — face pressure to abandon the badge entirely or pay for protection they cannot trust, pushing them toward leaving the platform or building their own authenticated channels.
Rival platforms can now market identity assurance as a differentiator against Twitter, since a checkmark there signals payment rather than personhood.
Third-order effects
If verification remains tied to subscription revenue rather than identity proof, the industry-wide question shifts from 'who is verified' to whether platforms need independent [[/concepts#proof-of-personhood]] mechanisms — third-party attestation replacing the platform badge as the trust layer.
A pattern of enforcement aimed at critics while impostors pass through suggests moderation capacity, not policy, is the binding constraint — inviting regulatory scrutiny of how major platforms handle impersonation of elected officials.
The trend: Platform identity signals are being redefined from earned trust into paid subscriptions, decoupling the verification badge from actual authentication.
Elon Musk claimed he fixed Twitter's verification system to stop verifying impostors. So our columnist @geoffreyfowler@federated.press tested it again—and again was able to get a blue checkmark (and go viral) impersonating a U.S. Senator. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
A @washingtonpost reporter was once again able to create a verified account impersonating me. Twitter has failed another test of trust. It is an absolute joke that @elonmusk can't implement a functioning verification regime—but we aren't laughing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ …
Oops! I did again, @washingtonpost: I created a Twitter account pretending to be @SenMarkey (with his permission) and applied for Blue “verification.” And once again, Twitter took my $8, asked zero questions and gave the fake account a blue checkmark. https://www.washingtonpost.c…
Twitter has now suspended my test account, @SenatorEdMarkey But it hasn't addressed the questions I raised in my column about how its systems protect users. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... What is the “manual authentication” process that accounts go through before getting a b…
“Creating my impostor senator the first time around was dead simple. All I needed was a new @Twitter account running on an iPhone and a credit card to pay for Blue.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
“my test shows Twitter does not understand the dangers of misinformation or the value of authenticated sources. Under Musk's leadership, Twitter users face a greater risk of seeing something fake and thinking it is real.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Oops, @geoffreyfowler did it again. @elonmusk, in the interest of transparency, can you please share all internal Twitter communications around how you've set up Twitter Blue's authentication, changes to stop impersonation and how you're dealing with this new revelation? Thanks h…
@Techmeme @geoffreyfowler Pretty sure they looked at mine. I just got verified yesterday with hope I would appear in more of the feeds of the people who followed me, & I even tried to delete all my Elno tweets before the Gestspo came, but nope, they must have decided to keep me i…
Musk claimed he cracked down on impersonation. Our columnist @geoffreyfowler tested its verification system again—and again found he was able to get a blue check impersonating a U.S. senator. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Twitter Blue still not actually “verifying” IDs, despite Elon Musk promises Washington Post's tech columnist was easily able to get a checkmark for an impostor Sen. Ed Markey account https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Elon Musk said Twitter would begin authenticating users who pay $8 for Blue. Our tech columnist was still able to get a checkmark for an impostor Sen. Ed Markey. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Um... Houston we have a serious problem with this dirty bird app's Vetting process but this is nightmare (come true) that many of us expected. Notwithstanding HOLY SHITTLESTIX I have nothing spicy to add beyond: you should read this https://twitter.com/...
Once again, @geoffreyfowler created an account pretending to be a U.S. Senator. (He had permission!) And once again, Twitter took his $8, asked zero questions and gave the fake account a blue check mark. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...