At the end of August, Sean Murphy was trying to book a flight between Nairobi, Kenya, and Entebbe, Uganda, with Kenya Airways. “The information on the booking page was ambiguous,” says Murphy, the cofounder of Web3 company ImpactScope. So he fired off a quick direct message to the verified Kenya Airways account on Twitter, asking it to confirm baggage allowances for the flight. A day later, when the account didn’t reply, he sent the company a public tweet reminding it about the question. Then the replies started.
Within minutes, multiple Twitter accounts claiming to be Kenya Airways tweeted him. All of them offered help, but none of them appeared official. The accounts used Kenya Airways’ logo and slogan, but clicking on their profiles raised red flags. “Most of their messages were well crafted,” Murphy says. “However, the low number of followers coupled with the spelling errors or odd choice of characters in their actual Twitter handles was the main giveaway.” The accounts included “@_1KenyaAirways” and “@kenyaairways23.”
It’s now easier for Twitter accounts to appear official. In the chaotic days since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter and subsequently fired thousands of staff, the social network has revamped how its account verification works. The new Twitter Blue subscription, which has started rolling out to some users, allows anyone to pay $8 per month and get a blue check mark showing they are “verified.” The tick…
