Verified Twitter account claiming to be Jesus Christ sparks debate

NEW DELHI: After Elon Musk took over Twitter, the hot debate that has been ruling social media and headlines is whether his decision to charge USD 8 for a verified account is acceptable.

Amongst the ongoing chaos, a verified Twitter account claiming to be Jesus Christ has taken over the internet.

Ever since Elon Musk announced a fee of USD 8 for a verified account, anticipations started looming large on how the company is going to go about it.

The biggest worry that most people expressed was how easy it would be to impersonate someone on the micro-blogging site. And that's exactly what happened in this case. A person with a verified Twitter account is claiming to be Jesus Christ and people can't stop laughing.

Some people have, however, even expressed displeasure and amusement over the current verification policy of the micro-blogging site. As soon as the paid verification feature rolled out, many fake accounts of famous personalities like former US President Donal Trump surfaced on the application.

Some verified accounts even impersonated the gaming character 'shoppingmode Super Mario' and Lakers player LeBron James.

Taking the matter into his hands Elon Musk tweeted that any account trying to impersonate someone else would be disabled unless they declare it's a parody account. The account claiming to be Jesus Christ responded to Musk's tweet by announcing that it's a parody account.

Twitter on Thursday announced that it is not putting the "Official" label on the accounts, even though it is still going after impersonation and deception.

A tweet from the 'Twitter Support' account read, "We're not currently putting an "Official" label on accounts but we are aggressively going after impersonation and deception."

Earlier, Twitter started labelling Indian government handles and Indian media as "official" ahead of the roll-out of blue tick subscriptions across the country.

Twitter's executive Esther Crawford said verified accounts will now come with an "Official" label beneath their username, complete with a grey verification checkmark, New York Post reported.

"Not all previously verified accounts will get the 'Official' label and the label is not available for purchase," New York Post quoted Crawford as saying.

Official pages will be designated for "government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers, and some public figures," she added.