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Twitter gave a gold checkmark to an inappropriate, fake Disney account

The account has since been suspended from the site for posting tweets containing slurs

After rolling out a policy that saw all verified legacy accounts lose their blue checkmarks, Twitter awarded Disney Junior UK a golden check mark, denoting that it was a business page. In an oversight from the company, though, it turns out that the Disney account was fake.

The site began applying checkmarks to organizations with large followings in an effort to confirm when accounts are run by businesses. The symbol is a part of Blue for Business, which grants gold checkmarks to corporate entities.

The fake account was sniffed out by Variety when it took notice that the follower count wasn’t on par with those of official Disney accounts. It was eventually confirmed to be a fake when the account user tweeted, “this isn’t actually real right? someone fucking pinch me or something.”

If a slip-up on Twitter’s part wasn’t bad enough, it turns out that @DisneyJuniorUK also reportedly used racial slurs in past tweets. The account was suspended, but not before jumping from 1,400 to more than 4,700 followers after the accidental verification.

The organizational verification costs $1,000 plus $50 extra for each affiliate account. Unless Disney mistakingly asked for the spoof account to be verified, Twitter may have just handed out the gold checkmark without a proper review.

Twitter has not made a statement about the false verification yet. With the account now being suspended, the social media platform can hope it marks the end of the incident, despite the ongoing drama surrounding the company’s new verification guidelines.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Variety Via: TechCrunch

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