The unverified era: politicians’ Twitter verification post-Musk acquisition

Abstract

This note discusses the impact of changes made to Twitter after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company, specifically focusing on the verification of politicians’ accounts. With Twitter serving as an essential source of information, the blue badge of verification has provided assurance of account legitimacy. However, as of April 2023, blue badges were removed from the accounts of users without a Twitter Blue subscription. This note analyzes the verification status of politicians’ accounts before and after the changes and finds that over 80% of previously verified politicians have lost their verification. The study used a dataset of 5,156 Twitter accounts of current or former members of parliament in 32 European countries. The note also highlights that the new gray badge, which was introduced to replace the blue badge for politicians and government organizations, is not widely awarded, except in the United Kingdom where members of parliament have a gray badge.