Getting the blue badge of approval on Twitter under Elon Musk just got easier. Fake Twitter accounts verified with money are on the rise. The new Chrome extension “Eight Dollars” isolates accounts with fake blue ticks.All accounts that are currently Twitter Blue subscribers are approved and a blue checkmark is added to their profile. While this is a nice improvement for low-follower personal accounts that cannot get their account approved because they don’t meet Twitter’s requirements, it’s currently being abused on the platform. Fake accounts with the same name as the officially verified accounts are opened and they are not noticed at first sight as they easily receive a blue tick for a fee. Unless you go to their profile and look at the approved icon, it is not clear whether they were approved for real or for money.
“Official” tag missing on most verified accounts
Twitter fixed this issue by adding the gray “official” phrase to approved accounts because it met the criteria, but the official tag, which wasn’t added to all profiles, was removed shortly after. Currently, some real verified accounts have this tag, some don’t. So, how to distinguish? The first is to go into the profile and look at it. Latter; Using a Chrome extension.
Chrome extension shows fake verified accounts
The extension, published on the Chrome store under the name Eight Dollars, searches for checkmarks on the Twitter website and adds the text “Truly Verified” for well-known accounts and “Verified with Money” for accounts verified with a Twitter Blue subscription.
The Chrome extension cannot be easily installed through the Chrome Web Store, as it is in the approval phase. It is necessary to install it manually by switching to developer mode on Chrome’s extensions page and installing the Eight Dollars add-on code.
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