Musk trolls senator demanding answers on Twitter fake-account scandal | Ars Technica

Unlike brands like Nintendo and Eli Lilly, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) knew who was behind the parody account recently impersonating the lawmaker on Twitter. Washington Post reporter Geoffrey Fowler had asked permission to create the fake Markey account, part of the reporter’s quest to see how hard it could really be to impersonate a public official under Elon Musk’s new paid verification system. What Fowler found was that it wasn’t hard at all to launch a fake Markey account. As soon as Fowler confirmed the ease with which any public official could be impersonated, an outraged Markey used his real Twitter account to call out Musk for allowing the impersonation because he favors “putting profits over people and his debt over stopping disinformation.” Musk took almost two days to respond to Markey, opting to troll the Senator rather than take the complaint seriously. “Perhaps it is because your real account sounds like a parody?” Musk tweeted. The fake Markey account has been taken down, but that clearly did not settle the matter, and now Musk poking fun at the senator could have consequences that go beyond a tweet thread. Markey has chosen to wield a bigger platform than the one
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