Be Careful with Twitter Blue Checkmarks

In a recent tweet, Vitalik Buterin the Russian-born Canadian programmer, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, said: "So many scam accounts have blue checkmarks these days. Seems like a complete failure of blue checkmarks in their current form. I'm definitely seeing the wisdom of turning twitter into an open API and letting third parties try to make the best UIs to solve these problems."

@dvcoolster, a blue checkmark verified account, shared: "They are bought and sold, the blue tick accounts." @sillytuna also mentioned: "I can't get a checkmark and can't get twitter to remove fraud accounts mimicking me and actively scamming people on twitter. Resorted to a trademark to try and stop people being conned.@StaniKulechov suggested that community based social verification would work too.

Although the Twitter help page mentions that the blue checkmark is a verified badge indicates an account is authentic, notable and active, based on the multiple scams taking place, for now, be careful out there with Twitter accounts, even if they display a blue checkmark.