Fake Twitter accounts pretending to be Chicago's mayor and other city government agencies sparked confusion for many this week.
Taking advantage of the social media platform's removal of verification checkmarks for groups that don't pay a monthly fee, accounts impersonating the city's mayor and transportation agency began tweeting messages, including news that part of the city's highly-trafficked DuSable Lake Shore Drive would be closed starting May 1.
An account posing as the Chicago Department of Transportation said it was "excited to announce that beginning 5/1/23, North DuSable Lake Shore Drive will be closed to private vehicles between Grand and Hollywood," adding that only buses, delivery vehicles and emergency vehicles would be allowed.
That message was then retweeted by a false account for Mayor Lori Lightfoot, which wrote that the move was part of the "single largest decarbonization effort in the history of Chicago." That account appeared to have been "suspended" by Twitter as of Friday afternoon, but screenshots were shared by the Chicago Tribune's Jake Sheridan.
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Other false accounts also amplified the message, including ones for the Illinois Department of Transportation and North DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
In a statement to NBC 5, the city said it was "aware of the fake Twitter accounts" and was "working with Twitter to resolve this matter."
According to the mayor's office, users can verify official city accounts by visiting: chi.gov/social.
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The fake accounts, particularly the one impersonating Lightfoot, made subtle tweaks to the account handle, like adding an extra letter to @chicagosmayor.
The fake accounts come just after Twitter began making good on its promise to remove the blue checks from accounts that don't pay a monthly fee to keep them.
Twitter had about 300,000 verified users under the original blue-check system — many of them journalists, athletes and public figures. The checks — which used to mean the account was verified by Twitter to be who it says it is — began disappearing from these users' profiles Thursday.
High-profile users who lost their blue checks Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump.
The costs of keeping the marks range from $8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to verify an organization, plus $50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account. Twitter does not verify the individual accounts, as was the case with the previous blue check doled out during the platform’s pre-Musk administration.
Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts appear to have paid to join Twitter Blue as of Thursday, according to an analysis by Travis Brown, a Berlin-based developer of software for tracking social media.
Twitter began tagging profiles with a blue check mark starting about 14 years ago. Along with shielding celebrities from impersonators, one of the main reasons was to provide an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts impersonating people.
