Technology editor and cyber security expert Art Samaniego Jr advised netizens to be extra careful when following personalities and organizations on the social media platform Twitter.
This is after Twitter removed some legacy blue check marks that used to be signs of verified accounts.
Twitter also brought it back after a few days on some accounts of well-known personalities and organizations but not on all the ones it had before.
According to Samaniego, the number of impersonator accounts or users who use the name and images of personalities and organizations may increase now that many of them do not have blue check marks.
“Ang unang malaking problema niyan ay ‘yung impersonator accounts, so pag wala tayong confirmation na ito talaga ‘yung tao na ito, pwede tayo maniwala dun sa pino-post niya,” he said.
Removing the legacy blue check marks on some Twitter accounts is one of the first announced plans of its new owner, Elon Musk.
This is to monetize or make money from giving blue checkmarks to their users.
Under the new Twitter Blue service, the user can have a blue check mark if he pays 8$ or about P500.00 per month, or $1,000 or more than P50,000 per month to organizations.
Blue check can be obtained by individual users, gold check mark for businesses, while gray check mark for organizations.
Expert warn against following celebrities, organizations on Twitter
Samaniego recommends getting verification check marks on some personalities.
Samaniego said social media users should be doubly careful following the removal of many blue check marks on personalities and organizations using Twitter.
It is said that the account’s number of followers should be checked first, which is a sign of a legitimate Twitter account of well-known personalities.
“Doble ingat tayo sa pag-follow at sa pagpapaniwala ng mga naka-post, kahit naman saan basta sa social media mag-ingat tayo kasi napaka-open ng social media at napakadaming misinformation at disinformation, kailangan natin i-verify ang mga nakikita natin bago natin i-share ang mga information na nakukuha natin online,” added Samaniego.
Facebook has also first launched “Meta Verified”, where the user can pay to verify the account and give it a blue badge. Verification of TikTok accounts remains free.
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