In an effort to offer free verification to major organizations, Twitter briefly gave a gold checkmark to a fake Disney account. A golden check mark indicates that the account belongs to a company. It is associated with the Blue for Business offering.
The social network that applies check marks to organizations with a large following has backed out and awarded it to DisneyJuniorUK, which has now been suspended.
As Verity first discovered, the account’s follower count and content didn’t seem to resonate with Disney’s official brand. The report indicated that the suspended account also used racial slurs in the tweets.
After getting the golden check mark, the account tweeted “Isn’t that really true? Someone is hacking me or something.”
After getting the check mark, the account’s followers jumped from around 1,400 to more than 4,700. This means that verified enterprise accounts (even fake ones) could see a jump in visibility.
Twitter offers institutional verification for a $1,000 non-refundable fee. In addition, he charges an additional $50 per affiliate account. Unless Dinsey required this rogue account to be affiliated, Twitter just handed the check mark on its own without proper review.
We’ve asked Disney for comment and will update the story if we hear back.
Twitter removed the old checkmarks last week, resulting in notable people like Pope, Shakira, and Beyonce without a checkmark. Over the weekend, the company brought back check marks for accounts with more than 1 million followers — even if they didn’t pay for it.
Last year, when the social media company launched paid verification under the direction of Elon Musk, the lack of protections around impersonation led to the creation of fake accounts of celebrities and brands. These accounts then spread misinformation within minutes.