One of the most well-known chiptune artists (and video game composers) in the world, Chipzel is among a number of high-profile users who have had their Twitter account banned after seemingly breaking – but not breaking – some new rules.
Musk, who bought the social media platform without knowing what to do with it, how to operate it, or how to afford itbegan his term last month by celebrating the return of freedom of expressionand is quick to remind everyone that the people who advocate “free speech” the loudest are rarely interested in such things.
One of the main reasons why his short reign has proved so unpopular — along with the fair (possibly illegal) layoffs, uncertainty about membership dues paid, and just general ramblings from divorcees — his promised scrapping of the verification process from Twitter, public figures (and those working in fields where identity theft is rampant, like journalism) was a little blue Tick next to bestows their names. It’s a tiny little thing designed to just let the masses know that you are in fact who you say you are, but for Brainworm reasons, Speech and MAGA maniacs have spent years getting rid of them to be obsessed and turn an administrative function into what they think is a discriminatory, digital caste system.
Therefore, one of Musk’s first tasks as Twitter owner was to popularize the idea of replacing the current verification process – a process where Twitter manually verifies with your employees/your company that you are indeed you –with… a system where anyone can pay $8 for a blue tick (a train that has since then postponed until after the US midterm elections).
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Because this is such an amazingly stupid (and dangerous!) idea, many verified users have spent the last few days changing their usernames and profile pictures to the same ones used by Musk himself as clear and obvious examples of what’s about to happen on a global scale, the verification process should be revised in this way.
Musk, wild in over his head and after spending the last few days banging around like a substitute teacher who lost the classtried this practice – just a taste of what is to come! – to end when he said today: “In the future, all Twitter handling dealing with impersonation without clearly stating ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended”.
Popular Australian satire website The Chaser appeared to be one of the first victims of this new rule, their account was suspended not long after changing their name to resemble Musk’s, although they clearly followed this new rule and marked their account as a spoof (they didn’t even change theirs either names). to ‘Elon Musk’, they changed it to ‘Elom Musk’).
However, their account has since been restored under the new name “Elon Musk Fondles Dogs”:
You are not alone. Chipzel who is not only a great chiptune artist but also made the soundtracks for games like Super hexagon and Tricky dungeonsfound Your own account was blocked todayhaving previously changed her name to “🌈elon musk “parody”” which again doesn’t break the rule, as Musk himself put it.
UPDATE 11:59 PM – Chipzel’s account became somehow restored, although this warning page is displayed before viewers can access their feed:
What both do seem to hurt is a different Rule he hastily introduced right after that, which incredibly tries to prevent verified users from changing their display name (Tweets always shows two names, a display name that you can edit and your actual Twitter username, which you can’t be able). In a follow-up tweet, he says, “Any name change will result in a temporary loss of the verified tick,” which given how often people do this –for everything from sporting events to Halloween to the holiday season– is incredibly funny:
That’s a pretty clumsy rule just to prevent people from making fun of you on the internet! Former NFL player (and my box Commentator) Chris Kluwe is another verified user who got bannedafter also changing his profile picture and display name to match Musk’s (and tweeting some mean things about Tesla cars).
If only Twitter had an existing verification process that could easily sort out which accounts are real and which are fake. Ah great!
It’s strange that all of these accounts got completely banned instead of just temporarily losing their verification as he clearly said, but with Half of Twitter’s staff fired and the other half burned to a crisp My guess is mix-ups, hasty policy decisions, not knowing what crazy idea you got suspended for, and billionaires wailing.”I am not owned! I’m not obsessed!!” will be the norm for the foreseeable future.
I have contacted Twitter to clarify what rule the affected accounts broke and will update if they ever find out and get back to me.
