AOC criticizes Elon Musk for plans to take away Twitter’s legacy blue checkmarks on April Idiot’s day

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Twitter’s plans to scrap legacy blue checkmarks.
• Elon Musk’s firm introduced it was revoking legacy verified checkmarks from April 1.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit out at Elon Musk’s Twitter over its plans to revoke the legacy blue verified checkmarks on April 1.

Twitter announced on Thursday it plans to quickly sundown a legacy verified function that gave customers blue checkmarks subsequent to their identify. The corporate mentioned customers can signal as much as its Twitter Blue subscription program that prices $8 a month to maintain their checkmarks.

“Final time they tried this somebody pretended to be Eli Lilly and tanked their inventory worth by pretending insulin was free,” AOC tweeted.

In a separate tweet, she mentioned: “And so they’re rolling this out on April Idiot’s day.”

AOC was referring to the time in November when two Twitter accounts pretended to be insulin-producing pharmaceutical agency Eli Lilly. Each accounts paid for Twitter’s verification function, which gave them the blue tick, making them appear like Eli Lilly’s official account.

One account tweeted that insulin could be free, whereas the opposite claimed the value of Humalog, a diabetes drug, would rise to $400. Eli Lilly’s inventory fell greater than 4% in response, based on Forbes.

The corporate instructed Insider on the time it was “in conversations with Twitter.”

The pharmaceutical big wasn’t the one enterprise to be trolled by different Twitter accounts. McDonald’s, Nintendo, Tesla, and BP have been among the many corporations to be impersonated by faux accounts.

Some Twitter customers additionally pretended to be historic figures, celebrities, and politicians, together with former New York Metropolis Mayor Rudy Giuliani and O.J. Simpson.

This is not the primary time AOC, who has a grey checkmark as a result of she’s a authorities determine, has hit out at Musk and Twitter over its verification system.

“Lmao at a billionaire earnestly attempting to promote individuals on the concept “free speech” is definitely a $8/mo subscription plan,” she tweeted. This led to a Twitter spat between the 2, with Musk telling her to “pay $8” and AOC calling him a “union buster with an ego drawback.”

Following the argument, AOC mentioned she was “conveniently” having points with mentions and notifications on her Twitter account.

AOC did not instantly reply to Insider’s request for remark. Twitter mechanically responded to Insider’s request for remark with a poo emoji.