Twitter on Friday began cracking down on fake accounts that have proliferated since it took over Elon Musk, suspending registrations to its new paid badge system, and restoring the gray “official” badge on some accounts. The comeback was the latest in a series of chaotic events on the social network that has rocked back and forth over account verification since Musk’s $44 billion purchase late last month.

The @TwitterSupport account tweeted earlier on Friday that the gray checkmark denoting an “official” account came back a few days after it was introduced, then immediately removed.

“We’ve added an ‘Official’ tag to some accounts to combat impersonation,” the profile says.

The distribution of the hashtag was inconsistent, appeared briefly and then disappeared from the @Twitter account. On Friday morning, the firm also disabled sign-ups for free speech advocate Twitter Blue, which Musk touted as “power to the people” and offered regular users a verified blue checkmark – until then reserved for high-profile accounts. 8 dollars a month.

An internal memo to Twitter employees obtained by US media outlets, including The Washington Post, confirmed that the feature has been temporarily disabled to “help resolve impersonation issues.”

While introducing the paid blue check verification system, Musk warned that Twitter would suspend fake accounts that were not explicitly marked as parody. However, accounts impersonating public figures and businessmen continued to spread, with NBA star LeBron James and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair among the targets of the attack. US drugmaker Eli Lilly was forced to apologize on Thursday after a fake account on Twitter with a blue checkmark tweeted that insulin would be available for free. The fake account was removed and the company apologized.

The turmoil on Twitter has raised concerns about the potential for serious harm if attackers successfully pose as official representatives of powerful companies or government agencies. The confusion that saw two more senior security executives leave on Thursday led to a rare warning from the Federal Trade Commission, which said it was watching the development with “deep concern”. That same day, Musk told Twitter employees that the site was burning cash dangerously fast, creating the specter of bankruptcy if the situation wasn’t reversed. The warning comes a week after Twitter laid off half of its 7,500 employees. Source