Why Is Twitter Verifying These Bot Accounts on Its Site?
Questions have been raised over Twitters verification process after a handful of suspicious accounts were seen with blue checkmarks. Featured Video Hide  In a tweet thread on Sunday, Twitter user Conspirador Norteo, a data scientist focused on disinformation, highlighted six newly-created accounts that had all been verified. Advertisement Hide  While its common for malicious actors to hack into already-verified accounts, the six users had all been created just 26 days ago. Not only that, the accounts shared nearly all the same followers and had not made a single tweet. The profile pictures for two of the accounts even appeared to be stock images, while others seem to have been created with artificial intelligence. Dozens of the accounts followers looked the same as well, using computer-generated photos of humans and cats for their profiles. 29 of the remaining accounts have default profile pics and most of the others have pics that are used by multiple accounts in the botnet. We've seen networks that combine human, feline, and anime GAN pics with default and duplicate pics before:https://t.co/vAuErWLqm6  Conspirador Norteo (@conspirator0) July 12, 2021  Advertisement Hide  Although the majority of the accounts and their followers had not tweeted, several had. Conspirador Norteo noted that of the handful that had made tweets, nearly all of the content was related to automated Korean spam. Permanent IDs of the empty blue-check accounts followed by this botnet, in case they rename:@aykacmis 1405267251662622733@degismece 1405264617023098880@anlamislar 1405264528024145921@aykacti 1405263426461503489@kayitlii 1405262586376040448@donmedim 1405261641982300161  Conspirador Norteo (@conspirator0) July 12, 2021  In a statement to the Daily Dot, Twitter confirmed that it had inadvertently verified the inauthentic accounts:  Advertisement Hide  We mistakenly approved the verification applications of a small number of inauthentic (fake) accounts., a Twitter spokesperson said. We have now permanently suspended the accounts in question, and removed their verified badge, under our platform manipulation and spam policy.  While questions remain, Alex Stamos, Facebooks former chief security officer, suggested that the verification could have been an inside job. You might have a malicious or bribed insider, Stamos tweeted. Something similar happened at IG (paid off by spammers, in that case).  cc @rinkisethi    You might have a malicious or bribed insider. Something similar happened at IG (paid off by spammers, in that case).  Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July 12, 2021  Advertisement Hide  Stamos also noted that many of the account names appeared to be Turkish, suggesting that the incident could be linked to a nation-state operation. As of Monday morning, all of the six primary verified accounts have been removed by Twitter. This post has been updated to include a statement from Twitter.