Musk slapped himself again! He stopped the much-publicized $8 blue check verification fee plan!

It is learned that the previously planned $8-a-month Blue V user paid authentication subscription service was stopped by Musk due to a sharp increase in fake accounts. The $7.99 authentication subscription service option has disappeared from the iOS app.

Before the blue check verification program was launched, there were already a large number of fake accounts pretending to be official accounts or celebrities, such as someone pretending to be former US President Trump's account to mock Musk. There were even people pretending to be Musk's Tesla account and mocking the automaker's safety record.

One account claiming to be from Nintendo posted a picture of Super Mario holding up his middle finger, while another impersonating pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly tweeted: "Insulin is now free."

The fake tweet circulated on Twitter for several hours. The real Eli Lilly official account later tweeted a refutation and apology: "We apologize to those who received misleading information from the fake Eli Lilly account." After the fake news was released, Eli Lilly's stock price fell sharply. Other pharmaceutical companies, including AbbVie, were also impersonated on Twitter.

A Twitter spokesperson had no immediate comment. Musk had no immediate comment.

Editor ✎Estella/

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