This New Series Completes Studio MAPPA\u2019s Dark Trilogy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

For much of Twitter\u2019s existence, certain users could be \u201cverified\u201d by confirming their identity with the site. This was an essential tool for celebrities, athletes, businesses and the media, people who may or may not have been famous, but who were all <\/em>at risk of having their accounts impersonated in the name of disinformation and scams.<\/p>\n

And for almost as long, certain weirdos had a thing <\/em>about this, seeing a system designed solely to prove a user were who they said they were\u2014a necessity on a social media platform\u2014as a symptom of, I dunno, some kind of leftist media woke conspiracy.<\/p>\n

This is a big reason Musk finally got around to removing this old verification system last week<\/span>, replacing it with a \u201cverified\u201d system that required users pay $8 to receive a \u201cverified\u201d badge, even though absolutely nothing about their identity was being \u201cverified\u201d at all.<\/p>\n

Anyway, things got especially absurd when over the weekend it emerged that almost none of the formerly verified accounts were going to pay the $8. Not even millionaire celebrities. In fact many even publicly mocked Musk and the decision. In return, Musk himself ordered that certain high profile users be given a verified badge anyway, at Twitter\u2019s expense, leading to incredible scenes like Lebron James turning down the offer<\/span> and video game deals man Wario64\u2014who has over 1 million followers, making him one of the site\u2019s more popular users\u2014 having a \u201cblue checkmark\u201d forcibly hoisted on his account, then later removed again.<\/p>\n