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Giving Impersonators a Much Shorter Leash

Despite having all the intelligence at their disposal, human beings have failed rather sensationally at not making mistakes. This dynamic, in particular, has been reinforced quite a few times throughout our history, with each testimony practically forcing us to look for a defensive cover. To the world’s credit, we will solve our conundrum in the most fitting way possible, and we’ll do so by bringing dedicated regulatory bodies into the fold. Having a well-defined authority across each and every area was a game-changer, as it instantly concealed our many shortcomings, thus giving us a shot at all the possibilities that nobody could have ever imagined otherwise. Now, the utopia you would expect from such a development did arrive, but at the same time, it was all pretty short-lived. Talk about what caused this sudden death; it was all technology’s fault. You see, the moment technology got its layered nature to take over the scene, it allowed every individual an unprecedented chance to exploit others for their own benefit. In case this didn’t sound bad enough, the whole runner soon began to materialize on such a massive scale that it expectantly overwhelmed our governing forces and sent them back to the drawing board. After a lengthy spell in the wilderness, though, it seems like the regulatory contingent is finally ready to make a meaningful comeback. The same has turned more and more evident over the recent past, and truth be told, Elon Musk’s latest move does a lot to keep that trend alive and kicking.

Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk has officially unveiled a fresh platform policy, which is conceived to impose a permanent ban on any handle that is engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’. Now, while Twitter already has a policy against impersonation, it takes a rather escalating approach towards the issue. To contextualize the statement, we must acknowledge how the micro-blogging platform has three different levels of enforcement within its still existing impersonation and deceptive identities policy. On the first stage, if your account is potentially confusing in terms of its affiliation, the platform would just ask you to edit out the relevant components. Nevertheless, assuming someone doesn’t listen to the warning, the next step might see the user’s account receive a temporary suspension. Only in the rarest of cases, we would see someone getting permanently banned over impersonation. Now, this third stage might just be the only stage left in the picture.

Musk’s decision came as a surprise for many out there, and not just because of its aggressive nature, but also due to the fact that it came before the company had set up its planned moderation council, which by the way, was proposed by Musk himself. Nevertheless, it very much goes with the volatile nature of all the things that have been happening ever since the Tesla founder took over Twitter. A closely-linked example here would be his move to charge users $8/month for their verified badge. This development, as soon as it started doing the rounds, had everyone enraged, leading to many verified users renaming their handle as Elon Musk so to highlight the issue of a verification system that doesn’t actually check who controls an account. What started from trolling, though, will end with Musk introducing his a-bit-too-hostile policy regarding impersonation

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