This week, while scrolling through X (formerly Twitter), I noticed that they had reposted a series of TechCrunch articles. Wait, no, I never did that.
But someone else using my name did. I clicked on the profile and there was another Rebecca Bellan with the same main photo and header photo as her actual profile. I'm on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022 respectively, and I'm Side Eye Chloe. The bio reads, “@Techcrunch Senior Reporter | It said “Journalist” and the location was set to New York, where I currently live. The account was created in May 2024.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was when someone realized who it was. Bot?! — They created an account impersonating me, as evidenced by the little blue check mark next to my name, and the fact that they ostensibly paid me to do so.
When But after Elon Musk's hostile takeover, that check mark now means users paid at least $8 per month for a premium subscription that gave them longer posts, fewer ads, better algorithmic considerations, and access to Grok. And while Don't you trust me? Check out all the enthusiastic responses in Musk's post:
Anyway, I am neither a paying subscriber nor a fan.
I'm not the only one targeted by impersonation accounts. A small number of TechCrunch journalists have also been impersonated on the platform. Some accounts, including my fake account, were suspended after being reported to X. But this only tells us that X is actively aware of this problem.
And the problem is that impersonation attacks like this are much easier to perform due to the degradation of X's verification system. In fact, it appears that no identity verification is required at all. Having a pay-to-play blue check system just begs bad actors and countries to abuse it.
Actually, X should have learned his lesson by now. When Musk first launched the feature, called Twitter Blue, in November 2023, it was quickly weaponized to allow malicious actors to impersonate celebrities, corporations, and government officials. One account impersonated pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and posted a fake notice saying insulin was now free. The tweet was viewed millions of times before being deleted, and the company's stock price took a hit as a result.
Another account impersonated basketball star LeBron James and posted that he had officially requested a trade from the Lakers. Another person posed as Connor McDavid and announced that the hockey player's contract had been purchased by the New York Islanders.
Accounts pretending to be TechCrunch journalists have been benign so far. All they've done is honestly repost content that any of us would have reposted. This suggests that the accounts were likely created by bots rather than particularly malicious actors.
We've been dealing with the issue of X's verified user bots for some time. The irony is that Musk suggested that forcing users to pay for verification would actually remove bots from the platform. But apparently not.
If you have been impersonated, you can report it to I've also asked colleagues, friends, and followers to report impersonation to X on my behalf, which may have made the process move faster.
X did not respond to TechCrunch for comment on how many users might actually be bots, why this issue still occurs, or what the platform is doing to fix it.
